Episode 163: Everdell, Stephen Buonocore, Tantrum House

0:04 hey y'all it's time for rolling dice and taking names on this episode the pod father himself Steven Vanacore from stronghold games joins the guys to discuss the difference in releasing gangs today versus ten years ago also Melissa and Sarah from tantrum house talk about tantrum con and the guys give us a five minute initiative for everyday welcome again to rolling dice and taking names the podcast that has been the background noise for board gamers for six years running this is episode 163 my name is Marty and I'm Tony and this is called the bridge to chasm dumb not to of bridge of chasm them that's from Lord of the Rings right yes that is these that is the music that is plain as they are escaping the mines of moria that was also a card in our Lord of the Ring CCG

1:02 I think that's right and the whole premise behind this and the reason I bring this up is you know Gandalf is standing on the bridge and what does he say to the Balrog he said yo ya gettin by me oh so I was sitting there thinking what song do I do you do i haven't seen here you and I cuz we have a very special guest stones and I've got a bunch of special guests but one of them is a good friend Steven bottom core yes and I will send there you and I say they're going you will not do your what was that called oh crap his spiel what's that called wow that was a joke that just totally flat on his face right there we said up cuz they were there just dropped it on the floor it's weighing out there I can't I don't even know what it is down there you know what it is it's it's the spill sheet his spill don't you will not pontificate your spit oh man I had it I had this all set up and I've lost it we've had should we name the show something else no because it's not worth my time anyway right now we're just lolling people to sleep where the music of the board game board game podcast group you know music is like it's there but you don't notice it and then when you finally hear it you just realize how annoying it is that's us that's it then living up to it so far in the first three minutes I'm excited about that but we had an eventful week oh my gosh we did we had a wonderful weekend because

2:32 out of the blue our good friend and designer Rob Davi Oh reached out to us said hey you guys live in Charlotte North Carolina and we went yeah I kind of hesitant leagues like yeah where is this going he has a bunch of friends that he gets with a couple times a year just to get together across the country and game and it just so happens that this year they decide to come and hang out in little Charlotte North Carolina so over the weekend you and I went and hung out with Rob Davi oh and his buddies that played games all day okay we're gonna preface this you got to go do that because me and my new job been in it for a year got to go get on conference calls because of the snowstorm that was going through one of our territory so I was on conference calls beginning at 8 a.m.

3:25 throughout the entire day and there was a break and I'm soon thinking this this is awesome I'm so excited that I get to go do this while you get around there and hobnob with everybody playing games and did you get to play some good game yeah yeah I did have you ever heard of a game called holding on the trouble like of Billy car came out at Gen Con last year I have is it's got that weird box like the guys is in a coma or something I don't know it was weird that's kind of what it is so there's there's an accident and he's basically in the intensive care and the whole goal of the game is is to try to keep him alive long enough to ask him questions about his life and put together the pieces of his life that tells a story and this is a co-op game it has a very much of a pandemic feel there are events that happened and you assign workers to go things like keep them alive for asking questions and when you ask them a question it reveals these cards these cards just have like some sort of images on them and these images are part of his life part of a timeline that you're caught trying to construct and find out his story well this is a game that's played basically over the course of ten scenarios and we played the very first one so you didn't really get the full scenario but over the course of ten then you'll find out what happened his whole life it was one of those things where the co-op game portion itself was kind of vanilla but the adding of the component of well the whole goal is to

4:55 try to figure out his life story through these images that you're that you're looking through a deck and finding and putting him in like a timeline that's the cool part of the game did you win we did is one it is one of those good co-op games where you know Rob Davi was saying you know a good co-op game he should lose 50% of the time well we came close to losing but on our very last turn we had to successfully complete the scenario objectives each scenario has certain objectives trying to meet we have to meet him on the very last turn and we happen to win so I was glad to get experience that a lot of people don't like it because they say it's really depressing I guess if you really get into the theme of the fact is this guy's on his deathbed and his pulse is starting to drop it's funny when you have a choice on your turn you can either help him resuscitate him or you can ask him questions like and whatever he's gonna go flatline in a few minutes let's Tabasco some of the questions as we can before he passes so it almost became like a joke but I guess is one of those things I guess if you really get into the theme of it it could be somewhat depressing but it was good so where was the replay value in this well after 10 scenarios I don't know that there is but it's not a legacy game so you're not marking it up or anything so you can easily trade it off to somebody else there's no reason why you just couldn't play the scenarios again if you just want to try to do better next time but at that time you'll probably know the story and you're also not supposed to move on to the next scenario - you win to get the story that the portions of the story you need you need to finish every scenario so if you fail you're supposed to replay it over and over again unlike you know pandemic legacy

6:26 where it kind of forces you through the game even if you lose okay now see and I got to play this weekend also Friday night got to put black Orchestra back on the table and we talked about that in a previous this episode and we actually won this time and nice I know I was I was real pleased with it but I played it with my wife and a couple of our friends and one of the people they're not real big on co-op games but I was hoping the history of that game would bring him in and he would enjoy it and so I think oh yeah that's when Germany did this or oh yeah I remember that and give us a little backstory history on this these are the four our friends that went to Germany and all my hopes were right there and no it didn't happen I was kind of I was like really of all the coops he's like nah I prefer having that you know single player tight game enjoys Carcassonne and games like that and I was like oh okay well I tried but hey we did we didn't win on easy I'm still we're looking forward to getting that to the table what else did you get over at Dobby is anything dad to play the quacks of Basel move Mort cause yeah that I got to play that again I got to play that a B G G con again you know what it's a it's a fine game it's one of these games probably people have heard about your drawing tokens out of a bag and you're trying to it's a it's kind of a push your luck game there's poison in the bag and if the value of your poison exceeds seven you have to stop again you're trying to pull out tokens and the is your pala tokens they kind of go

7:56 around a spiral wherever you stop there's a point value that you can spend put more tokens in the bag and also get victory points it's cute but I tell you Tony I'm just not really into euro games meshed with push your luck cuz again I run the odds man in my mind I'm running the odds the average oh there's really only one out of seven in here that can hurt me oh there's the one out of seven that's just that's just great so anyway it's a fine game it's a great game for kids learn and stuff like that but the game that I was really excited to play I can't talk about I understand rob Davio's showed off one of his games is going to be coming out from restoration games it's gonna be announced in a few months so hang on but I got to play a demo version of it and I think people are really gonna like it and in fact I talked to rob him and just are gonna come on the show right as they're going to announce it so that we can talk to them all about it but I brought that uh not talk about the game but because I got to see some behind-the-scenes stuff Rob's wife Lindsay is the graphic designer for restoration games and some of this game that we're talking about has cards in it and we have suggestions on the cards and making stuff more readable like the fonts bigger you know how you know how we ask an imperial settlers for the font to be made bigger so we can read it and we're also gonna mention this on if a game that we're gonna review today but actually so as I'm sitting there's like well some of this fonts easy to read so Lindsay pulls up her Mac and she starts typing away and changing stuff and all of a sudden the fonts just started getting bigger and bigger she said how does that look is that look good I said

9:26 oh my gosh you're also like fine that's what we'll go to print bigger fonts I mean it's that easy Ignasi it's that easy that's all you gotta do okay so I was going to save this rent for after our review of avondale I mean every everyone else excuse me and I have not ranted on the show in a long time oh boy here we go I'm sitting back I'm gonna enjoy this we kidding naw see about fonts we we joke about imperial settlers and things like that but we were playing ever Adele that's gonna be one of our big knots we have on here font and when you have fonts that you cannot understand what the tokens are as part of it because the words are so much how hard is it okay I understand don't understand a word you just said the tokens on it the word that icons their icons and then also in the words are on the paragraph of what you have to do on the card you've got all these words and that that it keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller and then you can't even make out the iconography at the bottom because we had this one icon about taking any resource and we're like what is that I can't tell come on I understand that you want to show off your graphic artist that the beautiful drawing right there but what are you doing I'll admit I'm Marty and I are a bit of the Aged group and I'll admit my eyesight's not as good as another but think about it it's not that hard why do you make me go out and buy $18

10:57 readers I haven't bought in the Sam's multi pack yet all you had to do was move it up a little bit maybe cut out some words I don't know do something like that that about drove me insane in that game ever till I was sitting there thinking oh you do push it up a little bit what do you mean push it oh push up the graphic words push them off you mean okay why you've lost all those she's got me going to early you mean increase the font is that what you mean about Raisa Oh No push the box where the font is sitting over the graphic artist over the art in the card you know what I'm saying you know how nasi has this great cute little you mean make the Box bigger yeah and go over the art what is that beautiful art doing it's looking beautiful but is it helping the gameplay is it so cute you know those are some cute woodland creatures in every day those are some cute little amazing Amazons in imperial settlers all you gotta do is move it up how hard is that okay maybe it is hard no it's not cuz I saw Lindsay sit there basically and make adjustments if somebody said that doesn't look like a one it looks like an eye she said hold on for a second she started typing again it's like alright here are four different ones which one is the most readable was like that one is sweet copy-paste over every single card okay that's it it's done so it can't be done yeah anyway it was just really cool to see somebody working on the art and the graphic design of the

12:27 card and all the stuff that goes into it but yeah I totally am with you Tony yeah we're ranting on a game we even talked about yet but there were two icons that were almost indistinguishable to me and that was the berry icon that was in the text and and the any in the any resource icon both were round both of them didn't have very much distinguishing marks they looked this in fact many times I would grab a berry they said well Marty that's that's the other one oh oh my bad no no I get it and I guess probably one of the things you know and again now to be fair it was you me and Rob Rob is the youngest of all of us at 48 years old I know that puts me in my place you know just go get glasses you old fart and stop grumbling about it and just deal with the fact that you don't see as well as she used to I don't want to admit it I know I don't want to admit it and then when Rob was there I love how he gingerly put me in my place about Rule books he was awesome what do you mean for those who weren't there were just like everybody listening I mean I said Taryn was making comments about when we were going through the rule book and every day I'm like well you would think it was right here but no it's back here and he looks at me and a very soft robbed Avio voice and says have you ever written a rule book have you ever written the rule book he said knowingly knowingly and I'm like no but

13:58 I've written a technical manual thank you for work and procedures thank you I think flowcharts are awesome he goes well I've got a shirt that has a game flow chart in it did the tower fall yes you lose they talking about Ginga is that and actually we talked about talking about flow charts about the idea of using flow charts and rule books and he's he's played out the idea of doing something like that too when you think about a flow chart cuz I've thought about doing videos for the show of doing just flow charts I'm like I tell you if you were to start like doing some flow charts which was very popular board games and post that on BoardGameGeek you get a lot of love for that course do videos where you're like kind of like walk through that's what I hear stuff like that and I did that for street masters I remember that where I sweated and anyway but you know what I you just had this little rant and even though nobody may listen to you on increasing the fonts on cards we do listen to you and other things about a year and a half ago you were like I can't remember the name of our website cuz every time the end of the show you'd be like what is it rolling dice taking names calm no Tony it's roll dice take names you just couldn't get it right so I said finally I'm gonna go make this easier for Tony so I went and purchased the URL rolling dice and taking names calm so now if you type that in it will go to the correct website okay okay whoa whoa whoa whoa what's the name of our podcast well it's rolling dice and taking names but I thought that was too long to type

15:29 in so we shortened it to roll dice and take names I rest my case I still regret this name of this stupid show six years later but anyway so I fixed it for you say you couldn't screw it up so as you were announcing it you couldn't mess it up well it just so happens over the past couple of months you can't say the word pod pledge and every time you say it comes out Podge pledge to the point that now even I can't even say the word pod pledge correctly without having to think about it used to it just used to roll off the tongue pot pledge pot let's pause now I saw this on podge podge pledge something whatever well because of you not being able to get this right and people not being able to get to the correct site Chazz Marlar who design and runs the pod pledge com website has for you and only you Tommy went out and purchased podge pledge com method if you type in podge pledge com it will take you to the pod pledge page as it should so together both Chaz and I or Tony trying to Tony proof the internet for people so that people will not get confused when they go to a web address that you announced on the show so you would've thought chance would have learned from paradise paradise okay I agree when you say his his show real quick it sounds like just

16:59 paradise twice paradise paradise paradise para paradise para paradise paradise paradise pair of dice exactly Oh paradise paradise Wow see either way you would think from that which he said on our show that he also says that was not a smart move and yet he comes back with something that isn't a lie it's not an alliteration but anyway pod pledge okay so but if you say it too fast podge pledge oh you know so but thank you chairs taking care of me as only you can do with that now I and and thank you again chaps for sending me see he's helping me he sent me a copy of the Beastie Boys sabotage CD so I've gotten to listen to that thank you thank you Chaz I would have never have listened to it had it not been from him because I didn't think it would be my style of music there are some very interesting tracks on there very good tracks oh that's go I didn't realize he did that so he sent you a copy of the album sabotage from Beastie Boys yeah I think that's the name of it it's got the sabotage which you know you and I named a recent show that we did sabotage and he heard that I had never heard that he sent it he's like it's one of his favorite albums and I can understand why I I do not listen to all the I don't know if it's politically correct anymore rap music that what came out then so I never gave it a show I don't know what

18:31 they call these the young music I don't know what these kids call things today by the way it's called the Lord is it ill communication a sabotage not named yam no I think your radio communication I don't know it's out of my car in Miami or three communication all those they see they're ill or I don't there's a zoom feature on your browser that you can blow up the font it looks like three capitalized see this is the same situation we had when we was playing this game from rob we couldn't tell whether the one was I or a 1 and then Lindsey just magically fixed it was amazing I've already talked about that hey you know what else but talking about guest coming to the city check this out the real famous games cafe up in Toronto Canada snakes and lattes is looking to expand now they've already moved into Arizona and they're considering moving to Charlotte so they reached out to us and said hey would y'all like to meet downtown sometime and tell us about the the environment here the gaming environment the landscape and when we'll see if this is a good location for us to consider so they spent several days riding around the city looking for possible locations and now snakes and lattes is seriously considering coming to Charlotte and opening a game cafe which is pretty flippin cool that is pretty cool hey I could not meet with him they already planned that evening now did you get to sit down I did and it was just basically hey we know what what gaming stores are currently in the area we're in Charlotte is there not a good gaming store you know they're looking for a place that you can get a lot of foot traffic so I won't go into the details of the areas

20:02 of Charlotte because that would make no sense to anybody else unless you live in Charlotte but they're just looking for a really good place to open where it has some decent parking and stuff like that so I'm hoping over in the next year that we'll hear something and maybe they'll move down here that'd be that would be really cool it's a that is really neat that they kind of cater more towards not necessarily hardcore gamers they can come and hang out but it's more for the people who just kind of all hey I want to come in and have a coffee or something to eat oh and that happens to be more games that we can play so it's a really good way to introduce people that may not be in the board games into this hobby what I find interesting is they came to Charlotte is that one they came to Charlotte because you live in every but I live here so I can understand why I have my doubt of why they came here mm-hmm cuz I live in Charlotte I'm like what's so special about this city well I think they also knew somebody that that lived in this area is to consider this area's pretty good haven for designers podcast video creators there's a lot of stuff going here in the hobby yeah and I mean I posted this on our podge pledge haha all right you can say it now no I can't a backer channel it's like that you know United Van Lines put out their stats for 2018 taking forward grain of salt but if they did say you know of the states that people are flocking to you have the West Coast states - California and this is on the stats I'm not saying anything about California this is their stats and then they also listed South Carolina North Carolina and Florida as places where people are flocking to and Vermont we're a growing area I guess so okay that makes sense and that maybe

21:34 they consider that - maybe they looked at you know where people were growing areas and Charlotte has been more the the the bigger growing areas for geez probably the past 20 years it's so funny well round here when people asked me where I'm from and I'm saying here it's like wow I've never met anybody from here what do you think we came for you think it was just like empty wasteland when you got here people were here before you got here you know mm-hmm exactly all right I mean I met Marty I'm hearing the chime of another hangout I think Stephens waitin for us do we need to can we can we make him wait a little bit Stephan Bonnar call from stronghold games right Steve he's coming on the show we haven't talked to Steven in a while oh yeah I can't wait I was gonna talk to him and hang out with him for a bit miniature Market is known for its daily deals but recently they have introduced something called the drop so each day they're gonna have a daily deal but what happens instead of the deal being done at the end of the day if the supplies are still there each day they're gonna cut that deal by a certain percentage and now Tony over the past several weeks we have about 14 or 15 games that have come out and just continually dropped until they're like really really cheap prices but at some point Tony those things are gonna sell out but it's just a fun little game to watch like ooh I'm interested in that game but how low will it go before I

23:05 push the Buy button this is a brilliant marketing idea yeah when is your threshold what is it for you I know I've designed a spreadsheet where I'm able to type in the percentage in this beginning rate and I can sit here and look and say mmm so that's my price point I believe that's gonna be my price point all I kind of do is go out there and grab it it's a fun little game and then if if you don't get it he's feel sad and some of these games that's been out there for like a week or so are already like 50% off what they were when they were originally listed for example Tony won that you and I are looking at Warhammer 40k dice masters it's as of this recording 32% cheaper than when they initially announced it yeah so what's our point what is it 50% this is the 52 do you think we can get 54 that's the gamble right cuz we may have make up one day and say this is the day I buy and they're gone so this is great you can go out to miniature market.com slash the dash drop or just look on their main page up at the menu the drop a great new way to see what games are on sale and once you find one sell play a little game along with it push your luck how low can it go check them out at mid market.com it is very rare for Tony and I to get into a deep heady discussion and typically that is not something we want to do by ourselves so we usually bring on somebody that's way smarter than us to do so which is why we're

24:36 excited to have back on the show from stronghold games Stephan Bonnar oh you forgot one important thing Marty you said stronghold games you got to keep from earth you're going sorry it is indie games it's stronghold games eh a subsidiary of indie games studios or something like that from an alliance indie game studios or studio that's right I'm lovin your man by the way hello this yes this is Steve Ivana girl president of stronghold games who also is the spokesperson for the greater entity known as indie game studios which includes stronghold games indie boards and cars in action phase games oh he's already gone into salesman pitch let's go here we go no harm before week before we got money I got one very important question ask Stephen actually I have two two very important questions are you ready sir yes okay first question what is your temperature right now in Florida I joke before you jumped on your buzz token at the moment in its 7 12 p.m.

25:44 it's 65 degrees it's a chilly 65 degrees in by the way what does it bite you about 2032 oh hey warm compared to like the middle of like Illinois and New Jersey and things like that but to be fair this is the this is the cold spell we're going through right now that recording so this isn't normal for us at all being so in our high today was thirty something that's that's now yeah for you that's that's pretty darn pretty darn cold only a high of 67 degrees today and normally is about 70 or so degrees here in South Florida so lovely lovely weather here all the time sorry you cannot experience it as we do I'm sorry but we know that since you have such lovely weather you have to cut your grass Const so what mower do you own I use the mower known as go what's the guy's name I'm your you use a guy you know a guy don't you Piper lawn services or something like that no dude I think I didn't I didn't do it I didn't do it in New Jersey and I don't do it here no no no I can't I cannot cut my lawn that's crazy talk too much work I got two minutes to I gotta run a game company I cannot cut my lawn I'm sorry it's therapeutic cutting along stair period I know I would get good exercise if I did it I should probably should because I'm not exercising it off the button yeah based on all those four Facebook post you got of drinking stuff at by the poolside you know you can't watch that those calories can go to your hips and I get in you're not kidding but

27:15 it is lovely down here in Florida and any time you gentlemen want to make a road trip down here you're more than welcome to my home before we hit record Tony he said that we had a space down there a room that we could stay and that's an open invitation right there baby I did well I'll be actually in Orlando next Monday but I'm only there for one day meeting so I just I'll plan it out so maybe that while I'm down there for work I can come swing well there's no swing into where you're at Orlando's about two two and a half hours that's a little bit too far but you know for like a day trip but sure know if you ever happen to be anywhere between Orlando and where tom is of the south tip of Florida you know please do let me know and we'll see if we can arrange somebody would be great to see you guys in a non game convention setting and fight what are you sipping on right now sir cuz it looks refreshing it is a very day it's work it's really good that you say it looks refreshing on a do podcast yes we're sharing the our video here so they can see me in my unsaved and state and things like yeah yeah I threatened to take a picture of this and share don't know but I'm I'm having it's called a juicy IPA by New Belgium New Belgium the guys who make Fat Tire that's their biggest one it's a New England style IPA very hazy as at least you can see or viewers cannot hazy and juicy notes of like orange and and and

28:46 and citrus fruits basically are in these New England IPAs you know what I don't see Marty is that he's not enjoying that in a rolling dice and taking name mason jar that he received from us I am wanting to point that out so I have to go into my kitchen and grab it I have it on my shelf it's just really up there high and like my display glass display area I could go find it it's in there no don't just go find things and try to appease us we know better than that there we go the reason why I was asking about that because if you don't know Steven is is really into he's I guess a beer connoisseur beer aficionado and I remember a couple years ago at GenCon when secret cabal had one of their special dinners for someone else a KERS Steve Steven went into this whole thing about how beer is made in the science and stuff behind birria was really super interesting so if you ever round Steven and you will talk about something besides games a hidden for some knowledge on beer cuz it's really interesting without a doubt beer is my second passion in life so a craft brewing is my second passion absolutely alright so the reason why we had you know we talked about wanting to get heady and here's here's what happened so a few weeks ago we were sitting around the table playing the new game from Steph one of the new games from Stefan Feld carpe diem this is a game that just recently came out is probably a little bit of a lighter fare and we learned the game we played the game we all sat around looked each other than we thought you know that

30:18 was really enjoyable we enjoyed that and it's like well we ever play it again and we always thought maybe maybe but there's other things in this same feel this the same points our thing that we may play instead and I asked them I said you know what would have happened if this game what it came out like in 2008 and we played it and they all were there the same mindset oh I would have liked a lot more back then because we were talking about how there's so many games coming out every year now that it's harder for one game to stick out among all the others is a very competitive field where maybe 10 to 15 years ago a game that would have been then may not even show up on the radar now because it's competing and gets so many other things so Tony and I thought about having a Stephen hog as a publisher who's constantly looking at games to bring out it cuz this is business he wants to bring out that game that's gonna catch fire and get hot pretty much like terraforming Mars did so let me see if I'm first right Stephen is is my premise am I on the right track in thinking this that if if a game that was maybe hot 15 years ago came out today it may not do as well just cause the competition in itself you're completely wrong no I'm just kidding as deep of a discussion as I thought it was gonna be that's why we have smarter people on the nests yeah after that long discussion or introduction here we go and you're wrong yeah let's go into the stronghold pitch okay yo yeah isn't

31:51 right but but like I gotta like mention you were playing carpe diem which is a fine game from Stefan velvet why were you not playing forum trade Shawn Ouma the new stronghold game by Stefan filled I don't think we have a cop oh my god you know the note I do as you're typing that I wrote this note that I'm not showing you not the audience of course says send forum Trey Johns and Marty and Tony so you'll be getting that Pauline take that note send that to them tomorrow it's because and side note I've heard wonderful wonderful things about that game in fact both of those games came out about the same time and everybody said trajan for for forum trade Yanam Trajan is the one that you want to play at the - alright yes and I don't know and I'm sure corporate deems a wonderful game and so I was just I was a quick little little note about our our Stefan Feld a game that literally just came out or is actually Street dating this week we're recording this on if it's okay to say Monday January 21st and and that one Street dates on on Wednesday the 23rd we had it at Essen and it's now finally coming out worldwide but anyway let's get back to this premise which is a very very good premise you know about games and and the track and that one needs to get to really have a hit today is far harder to achieve by a factor of we can pick a number there

33:21 factor of 10 at least than it was ten years ago so I mean like what why is that I mean it it's something that's just fairly obvious the easiest way of describing it is that we have an absolute glut of games that are coming out so did you hear the the stat on the number of games that came out at Essen this year did you get that's that I did not the number was around 1400 I believed okay that's 1,400 new games that had never seen the light of day before that one day or a four day period that was the essence spiel in Germany of that number of games there's going to be literally a handful that that you'll even really have made any impact on the industry in a year from from that date and then again and then 1500 more will come out next year so for a game to be noticed in a material way that changes the industry or becomes evergreen we can talk about what that means in a second it's it's gonna take a tremendous tremendous push we're in an epic or in it era now where good games are not good enough you need great games number one and you need games that are marketed well and stand out in some way that other games that

34:54 are similar in it in their in their mechanics or in a theme do not do and that is the basic premise of what you're saying you could have done it 10 years ago and the game would have been wonderful and people would be playing it for a long time and now you can't and we can mention so many games from 10 and 15 and 20 years ago that are they're still around today because they were because they had made that mark deeply then but if they were brought out now it would not work anymore I was actually thinking of an example of that as wonderful as a game that is I think if the game pandemic came out now as opposed to 10 years ago assuming that pandemic kicked off this whole wonderful genre amazing co-op games let's say another game had done that and then pandemic comment came out now I wonder if it would stood out as much as what it did 10 years ago hmm because now it's competing it would be competing against tons of other co-op games right throw a lot like it and now it's considered a basic co-op game cuz compared to new ones that come out I think we could we could almost pick anything that didn't literally set a standard if it I mean pandemic did set a standard in some ways instead of standard for coops but it wasn't the first co-op of course right of course so if if you took it out and then you moved it ten years and you know there was just other coops that came out and then it came out I think it probably ooh tough

36:26 one I think it probably would still have that impact because pandemic really is that good and really is that intriguing and the theme is so strange I use that in in in a in a good way because if you think about it like let's let's let's play a game about the whole world ending dude who like you know the disease is spreading that's a weird thing to be playing game about but it it's it it gets you it grabs you with the theme and the mechanics work that's a tough one I I think it was that's one of the ones that are that good okay in my opinion so but let's take a look at the stronghold catalog for is your evergreen how would you feel survive can you give us a definition of evergreen first for those who don't know Steven oh oh I thought you were gonna ask me but you went with Steven someone who actually would know the definition I was gonna make up no I I would like to bring the other guy into the conversation so it's the one that you can keep making and making money from that's my definition so give me them give me the professional address the other guy thing okay that was worth a laugh - no the other guy is worth I mean that is that's evergreen that's for that other guy it's an evergreen title very good thank you no but for the professional out there what would you call and evergreen what

37:57 is an evergreen yes sir yeah an evergreen is a is a game that you will print again and again forever it will sell always overtime for you there are minor evergreens there are middle evergreens and then there are earth-shattering industry-changing tremendous evergreens could you give us examples yeah absolutely give a plenty of examples of all of those things let's just go with I mean the strong little catalog survived is that kind of middle it you know I do a container or two per year which is a nice number of games a container and a half of games per year so we constantly planting that in nice quantities it's the kind of the middle one and on the lower end we have things like diamonds right Myka Cheryl's great great trick taking game we're selling several thousand units per year and it's gonna continue selling forever people love it we run tournaments it's great so you got the small one you got that meeting one survived which by the way survived is now approaching 40 years old not 40 years in my catalog but 40 years in total since it was first released by Parker Brothers and then we got it anyway and by the way and of all the games we're talking about it sold the most games but mostly by another company but but it's done very well of course but struggle but the big big you know industry changing one in you know obviously in my catalog would of course

39:28 be terraforming Mars territory Mars in the beginning was impossible to even to keep in print much less you know schedule our print runs in a nice way now we finally have been able to to schedule them and to to plan them out we have actually sales trends and it's one of the besides some of the the true icons of the industry which it's probably right up there with those it's it's one one of the hottest and biggest selling games in the injury a true evergreen that will sell forever and that's what that means so back to the original question in your catalog how would survive stack up in today's time in your mind oh okay so if survived for instance just came out today in the current market I think it would be a game that people picked up they enjoyed they saw some interesting things in it and we might do a second print run then that would be it I mean probably that's a that's just a guess it would not end up being the game it is now the game it is now has so much history involved you played it as a child and now you're introducing it to your children so it's a great gateway game or even a pre gateway game to get people into our hobby but we have so many others of those out there that a game like survive would be a-okay it did well people enjoyed it did it and we probably move on from it right now our buddy McNasty wrote an article on bgg a

40:59 couple weeks ago and talking about reprints and he had this great discussion about he may come out with the game and then there has to be a decision made do i new do another second run or do i sir is there you know there's sometimes people do second runs and then they don't sell as well because it takes them a long time to get back in a distribution and by that time the hype is gone then they're sitting on tons of product and I thought it was a great discussion so you as a publisher how do you battle that I mean other some games are kind of obvious terraforming Mars yes we do more print runs but are there psalmist's like you know what this game sold well but I don't think a second print run would so I'm just going to say hey I've made some good money off this and that's that it's one of the hardest questions that a publisher needs to address on a regular basis whether it's you know you you sold immediately and you sold out in a fairly short dist printing again and how many do you print how much do you capitalize on that initial buzz or you've you've in a couple of times and now it's you know you finished that print room when do you print again and how much do you print there's no hard and fast rules of that we're in it we're in a gray area of the game is not quite evergreen yet but there is obviously demand since I did sell through it with a game that has a certain amount of print a certain amount of demand because it's sold steadily and finally sold out the best possible thing for a publisher to do at that point is

42:31 probably to hold off chill out see what the demand looks like see if there's really people asking for that game again in these ways of figuring that out and then deciding whether or not in six months or a year to decide to print again one thing that we get short let me continue one thing we we get accused of is constraining supply so that we keep things hot and let me tell you something I'm in the business of selling games the last thing I want to do is not sell games with terraforming it was like 10 times people said like ah they're just doing it on purpose they didn't want I think no I took a big risk the first printing the demand was double that I took a uterus but the second printing the demand was double that it had just kept snowballing there may have been a in effect where demand got higher because of supply was constrained okay but that wasn't something I tried to do I didn't engineer that we were taking big risks with those print runs and they just happened to go now it's okay now we have a trend now we know how to print them so we print them on a certain schedule so we keep it in supply essentially all year we had a small month outage last year but you know that's gonna be that's gonna happen due to problems at the at the factory more than anything else but I think Marty to that point we're what we're talking about is how it is difficult for a game to get noticed I mean yeah you have to

44:02 be like you you have to be a rockstar and to take that risk I mean to me oh I'm constraining supply no you're right you want to make money and to sit there and and for people to say hey he's constraining no he's not it's a very risky thing what will catch what will be that next big hot game or is it an incredible game that just somehow got overshadowed because it came out against another incredibly hot game and I don't understand that argument either because I've heard that in other industries too I remember when a few years ago when the Nintendo Wii came out and I remember even on that site oh you didn't make enough of them because they just want to drive up demand a product not sold as a dollar not earned people want to sell product you want to sell product and we want to make sure people can get their hand on it and just like we talked about games are hot and then they're gone there is no way you would take that risk of not having a game on the shelf because people might forget about it two weeks from you know two weeks from now so that makes zero sense and in fact there's a quote for christian petersen that used to be the head of FFG he just stepped down he said a couple weeks ago or a couple weeks it he said a couple years ago he said a game from his experience has about a two-week shelf-life that if a game doesn't catch hold within two weeks it's gone and forgotten does that seem reasonable far be for me yeah far be for me to ever second-guess crispies no seriously I mean Chris Chris and I are fast friends

45:32 an amazing an amazing guy cannot speak more highly about Chris Peterson who started Fantasy Flight and of course then they fans might was sold to as in a day and he became the CEO of asthma in North America and it's its history now and he's he's just left the industry literally within the last less than a month he's retired I agree with him I think that that the two-week thing is a little bit he was making a point probably why saying two weeks but the point is very well taken if that product does not cede itself perfectly in the right place in the industry within a very short period of time it's gone you will have printed at once and you will never see that game truly being talked about sharp bgg you'll see people posting occasional in the forums there but you're not gonna see people buying that game in any kinds of quantity what people talk about that I've that I have talked about with people is that there's sort of three months of sales where you can then see what's gonna happen with the game there's sort of the pre-sales month where where the game is solicited to to distribution that's before it comes out for betrayed on them we just mentioned it it comes out two days from now that game would have been solicited month ago so I I'm going to have a sales history from that month that retail is purchased then there's gonna be the month where the retail is either there's

47:04 a so wow this was great and we're now gonna need to restock so we're gonna do that we're gonna bring some more games in and then the third month if you don't get sales in that third month and it doesn't give this this kind of tail then you're gone so you have to have that three months and then from there it should continue to even come close to being anything that would be recognized in say a year from now that three months will set the trend for you forever going forward for that particular game for that one particular game but we'll set that trend well let's think about it from the same point let's say it did not catch we all know it's a great game you know that happens can you then sometimes say well maybe we can catch fire with an expansion is that even possible or you're done forget it it's over you you can you can do it a few different ways expansions can you know light the fire again under under a game support for the game with promos with tournaments with showing it off at various trade shows and or conventions that you guys go to a lot but also at like distribution trade shows these things can assist to to put it back or keep it in the eye of of retailers and consumers so all of those things need to be used if one is to succeed with a game flam ruse you know flam Rouge of course oh you love that game love it love it love it excite excited for the expansion thank you

48:36 thank you expansion is about to come out so when we launch that game in 2017 thank you in 2017 it came out did well started selling we had we went to a second printing started selling everything was going going well when we hit it when we but but not like you know that like terraforming more as well but like that survived well let's put it at that level so it was a second-tier kind of thing and but and a little less maybe and it kept and it was selling we added the expansion boom we added some more interesting things for people we added promos we kept going second expansion this is fueling it if you take a look um on BoardGameGeek over the last is it month or so like so like during the holidays basically we've had like an extra like 500 people rate the game it's gone from about a ranking of like 300 to choose to 2250 something like rate it's just skyrocketing because more and more people are finding out about it so that sort of changes a little bit about what I said but we're keeping it in people's eye so we had that good decent three months and now we're keeping it out there by by pushing more product into the line and pushing some promos and doing things like that and getting it out there in front of people with expansions and things like that so people continue to enjoy it and like the game I was just on the diced our crews and we I played that game more than

50:07 anything on the cruise obviously I've made a promote the company of course but every time I play to people like oh I heard I want to play this I have to play this thing and they were out there they wanted to play with me and we played it and they were just loving it loving it loving it so I think we're gonna continue seeing a few more kicks with with flam Rouge and were they wanting to play the game because it's a good game or was because of the person playing no I'm sure it was about because it was a good game okay just want to talk the personality is secondary and you know I put on my biking shorts to make them really enjoy the fact that I was playing it with them come on hey I wasn't there can you tweet that not tweet that one out for us yeah yeah don't show that one I mean I'm waiting I'm waiting for the forum Rouge bikers who are actually got color with him besides the standard colors here maybe painted miniatures or something like that when's that happening oh we don't plan on doing I guess a special set oh well that would be kind of cool you know I got to think about that come you know I'd have to go get some extra sets and my head I just did I just did a small little deal with a friend who does painting for a certain Rover promo that we have he we might have a painted Mars rover oh yeah we're not gonna put not putting the distribution just sell on the website giveaway to like winners of tournaments and things like that so you're talking about the terraforming Mars starter player or it might be that yeah it does seem and I think Flom Rouge is a good example of this of what game really

51:39 really stands out it seems like with thousands of game coming coming each year it's almost like lightning in a bottle catching lightning in a bottle it seems like it really has to take two things it takes a good game in really good word of mouth actually the first I'd heard about Flom Rouge was somebody plated at bgg con and said oh man this game is great and then everybody else is play yeah this game is great I didn't really know anything about it I knew more word of mouth about the game before I ever sat down and played it and then when I sat down and played it I went oh aha that's why this is so good so now I'm helping the word of mouth it really seems to take both of those things together to make a game take off anymore ah you know I wish I had the secret sauce but all of those things together or go you know gonna be part of the beforee own word of mouth is huge and and you know showing it off and having it at the right places to like you know there's this this thing called the gathering of friends it's Allan moons like invitation convention invitation only convention out and I crow falls in April there's like a lot of people who have got big mouths would sound like a bad way of putting it but they're they're bloggers there they're the people who put up lots of reviews and stuff and they go to that if you can in you know we live with like we like to show off lots of games that I may be coming out at s in that year or end of the year and we get we get the games out there sometimes these games like like like like a matches lit and like broom and all some people start talking about it and they become bigger later on because a small group started talking about it and they told two friends and they tell two friends and so on that kind of that kind of idea so just a curiosity

53:10 obviously terraforming Mars is one of those games that that's been amazing for you it's one of those games that stood out among all the thousands came out the year extremely popular every time an expansion comes out it's a it's a top-selling expansion now obviously you brought the game out because you knew it was gonna be good did you have any clue it was gonna be this big and this well-received so basically you're asking me if I'm a genius is that what you're basically saying basically I'm you can either be humble or or not my point is that we we never know and I'm not I'm not a genius I would like to say that I'm a pretty smart guy I'm a pretty lucky guy at the same time but we never never know if a game is gonna have that much traction we can't get a feel for what we think it's gonna do but it's it's so it's funny when when terraforming more is when we we made it like I said we made a pretty big bet on terraforming Mars early on because we so we liked it we liked a lot we thought it was it was really interesting the theme was very topical right Mars is just very big very big topic in in in everything and in pop culture and in in science and everything and of course we played the game was great we did some extra development on it we did a lot of work with it but we brought it out there was no way to predict what ended up happening like that this entire large print run sold out allocated you know you know the word allocated means means that the demand to that we were that we have a supply the

54:42 distribution demand we sell the distributor's their demand was much higher than what we could supply them in fact it was by two times so what we tried to give them they wanted twice as much we then printed that number that was twice as much and then the demand came back it was twice that number this is crazy snowball of demand for the game then we couldn't predict it it took us to the fourth printing to figure out what that demand was gonna be for the long run and that's where we are right now so no the short answer is no we we don't know with what's gonna be we have if we have Inklings of how good it's gonna be how big it's gonna be but in the end you know there's a there's so many factors that go into this and you know I'm proud to have this game of course and I'm I'm equally proud to have had some input into that final design that came out because this is a partnership game with Frick's games out in Sweden so we worked on an extra year almost with them to make sure this game was as good as we thought it could be is it the table presence is that what may have to help y'all out because I'm the first to complain because I'm cheap as all get-out not I don't need miniatures I like standees by God if it's a great game it should stand on its all merits by gosh but in today's time just does the table presence help well with all the darn complaints about the components

56:13 in terraforming Mars I guess I guess it must be a great game because I'm selling the crap out of it as she was gonna say that Tony that the only one negative that you didn't hear about terraforming Mars is is something about the components in it so that the I'm not gonna say it doesn't have table presidents it's just excuse what I'm gonna say the lack of table presence maybe a terraforming Mars didn't hurt that game at all and in fact it begs the question and I know I've got to ask it because people are gonna be upset if I didn't you know the fifth year anniversary would you ever consider coming out with a deluxe version with the nice player boards and everything that people tend to buy third party I mean is that even in your mind anywhere we'll get to that one but it's just a little bit back I would say the terraform ice has a mixed table presence and that mixture is the fact that like we've got these gorgeous cubes in the game but the player boards are whereas the fail portion and everything else is right in the middle right in the wheelhouse of everybody all the play and the play right the player boards are too thin for people right and the cubes are really really really cool and the other stuff is like in the middle so let's let's now go to like this deluxe version that people have kind of talked about and I I can't either I got in so much trouble recently yes you did so you heard about this all you heard it may be all you saw it yes I got in so legacy terraforming Mars it could yes there was a mention of terraformers legacy there was a mention of the new

57:45 expansion all of which was not supposed to get mentioned at all and I got in so much trouble with Forex games about it I could have been some beer involved with that those those loose lips there but anyway so I can neither confirm nor deny that there will be a deluxe version of the game however I will say that it's not like we're in production right now really we're not but of course we've talked about this concept it just makes sense I do not think it would be foolish for anybody to say right now I'm not gonna buy the current version because I might buy the deluxe version the deluxe version is gonna be so super deluxe that it's gonna be much more than some of the parts if you know you know so if you bought all of the the base game and the for current expansions deluxe versions gonna be a much bigger to do than that if we did it if it all happened the way that I kind of envisioned it so it's gonna be much closer to war of the ring collector's edition my favorite game I've been on record as saying that I love that thing and I love my collector's edition with the painted miniatures and the huge board and in the wooden box that comes anymore akin to that then then to a game that anybody's gonna want to just like pick up you know when you know is up as a impulse

59:17 purchase at their friendly local or friendly online game store oh just just so you know we talked about this earlier in the show so Tony and I got to hang out with rob da vo this weekend he was in Charlotte love rob and the legacy terraforming Mars came up and he said everybody's been asking me if I'm working on legacy terraforming Mars because I have no idea what that is I haven't heard anything about this that is so great did you oh I gotta you know I'm gonna give you an April Fool's stick now with him really great no no no we haven't no Rob value no no I will I will categorically state that Rob and I have talked every time we see each other and we always want to work together he's just so busy that restoration obviously is worries his time is but know any and since legacy has now been sort of quasi announced any development in them any design and developmental legacy would is an internal thing between first games stronghold games and indie game studios we're we're now going to work on this thing internally together as we start starting wrapping up this thing so here's the big question what is this thing you're wrapping up this section this this whole thing with with with Steven okay so I know he's itching to tell us about maybe some stuff that's coming out this year but I want to put a spin on it oh I know like I do too you have donors coming out this year and in 2019 you're hoping that some of those oh my gosh hopefully it'll be the the next

1:00:48 terraforming Mars so tell us about some of the games it's going to be coming out this year that you saw us like oh my gosh this is different this is different than everything out there that I hope people will talk about in a little catch fire so what are some sides you got coming else like yes we think this may you hope everything is the next thing right but when you saw this game it's like ah I've got to do this one so tell us about some of those okay that's and that's actually a good segue into what goes right I could I consider and talk about my releases forever oh yeah and we know that and our listeners know that too and you do have a podcast where you do that this is an opportunity for when ignosi cuts you off when you're answering questions on board games insider not giving you the opportunity to speak for a while I will I will keep it short and pithy it's it's funny there literally today just updated the the website with some of the things that are like not a hundred percent announced but like we you know we already started tracks where we're printing them they're on their way out and I'll and I'll focus on those because those have some some amount of credit and gravitas to them based on the stuff that we're talking about right now I want to talk about the stuff that we kind of released at Essen and and it's coming out in the next couple weeks but we'll go a little longer than that even and this kind of gives you a little bit of a little bit of an extra announcement stuff because

1:02:18 people have not been talking about some of this stuff recently so a little bit of insider stuff for you coming up from us we have a number of like games from truly huge designers let's start with of course you know Gahan Sean clever right we picked that game up and announced that a while ago that we're coming out with that that's the great Roland right game it was nominated for the kennerspiel des jahres don't miss that date or I'm driving to Florida Oh No February 6th is the worldwide worldwide release date bogans strong clever we are also going to be coming out by Wolfgang washed or booth gang burst his sequel to guns shrunk lever which is dealt so clever which means twice as clever it'll have that as the subtitle so it's twice as clever so it's gonna have basically the same mechanics with some extra things and new dye involved in there too as as GaN Sean clever but now really even more mischievous and even more difficult to master and things like that so so this guy wolfgang war vert wolfgang burst i try to use the correct like german pronunciation i'm very bad at my german is worse than my Italian which is worse than my English which is not very good so he's really one of the most amazing designers that have come up in the last few years I mean somebody was nominated three times in the same year for spiel - our

1:03:51 items is amazing

1:03:53 to Ken or one regular spiel des jahres just amazing so so having this follow on game - GaN shown clever top belt top alt so clever or twice as clever and that's a May first release for us by stronger games and designed by Wolfgang versed the second game I'm gonna mention which is also by of Wolfgang burst is bricks so you remember Tetris yes of course from Urich when you're a kid so right the little pieces are coming down and now people are making kinds of like movie Rosenberg with his polyomino games that we did right of cottage garden and in the summer and spring meadow so Wolfgang has created a game called bricks which is basically Tetris on paper with it the pieces are falling down and you must seat them into your grid and you must to move them around the way you would do it in in in Tetris you you spend energy so you have a certain amount of energy that you can spend and you move them back and forth and you can turn them around based on energy spending and that is also a may release by strongly so it's another call it another roll in right all of these are in the genre of rolling right right so twice as clever and bricks are all rolling right and I'll mention the third one it's not by as fairly a bigger designers by ralphus or Lindy and it's called diesel and diesel is another

1:05:24 rolling right where you're rolling dice and you're selecting dice and everyone has to use the same dice as you in very different ways it's hard to describe each one and and then their differences but each one of them have how quite different different in their implementation of the way they're using this rolled dice select dice people mark dice multiple ways of playing the game and dizzle where you get bonuses by various placements of the markings on your on your score pad and that again would be a may release all of the games I mentioned just now are with our new partnership of Schmidt pila out in Germany do you know oh yes I do because I'm always looking for they're rolling rights when I go to Amazon what Schmidt Sevilla is a huge company probably all most not quite but almost in in in the same level as Ravensburger they probably Smits Fela does more hobby games or Ravensburger more mass market and but they kind of swing back and forth but they very large gaming company out in Germany and we're honored to be selected by them to to do we first were to do Ghana shown clever but now to do this entire series of rolling rights that we're doing with them and hopefully more and more interesting things in the future with them two more things that I'm gonna mention got a coming up that

1:06:55 almost nobody knows about right now these are April releases a nother game so this would be the fourth game by of Afghan borscht pretty amazing that we're able to get four games by him it's a game called subtext subtext is a party game where it's a drop drawing game where say the word DRA WI ng again drawing where's the other are at the end of that word my girlf is the same drawing I can't say drawing she's gonna love this if she hears it's drawing drawing drawing okay drying listen listen you two hillbillies don't talk about my accent okay we get picked on so much it's fun to pick up somebody else actually but but it's amazing amazing great stuff it's a drawing by Wolfgang worst we're sure how will you draw is not that important and you're going to be trying to to hint at the word that you're looking to two people to figure out not necessarily draw the perfect word you you want only one person to guess that you know the word the person who knows which word that everyone's that you're gonna be drawing so it's a really interesting take on a drawing game very simple you can play it with anybody stop

1:08:26 laughing it's not laughing at my at my New Jersey accent you you creeps you southern boys y'all you southern boys you okay so there was two games that you did not mention in there and I just want a quick take on this is okay first off this will be another grumpy Tony showing up your house if I do not see stronghold undead yet say it say with me I will be releasing in 2019 stronghold undead there is a gosh oh my gosh can I go to 90% never would that be good enough yeah so we have a special surprise but we did we already announced that anything well portal con but we're recording this right before portal con hopefully we're gonna hear some more from portal con at the end of January I I should not take away ignosi stunned earth because I forgot what we mentioned about it but yes we're very much on track to releasing it this year okay that's fair that's fair that's not fair that's fair and what about this Aggies es shifting sands edition which you know has been Aggies eeeh was the path taking game that everybody loved and it's disappeared and you've picked that up and announced that for 2019 yes we did yeah that we're very excited about that one that's a game that we we took actually we've had the game on the contract for two years almost what and we did a yeah we did a lot of because we wanted listen we wanted to do the game want to do it right we wanted

1:09:57 to do it as a true second edition so I had a friend of mine brian barczyk who worked tirelessly on doing a second edition with the designer and we are definitely doing that game in fact that game is going to be a february kickstarter from struggle movies march kickstarter from stronghold okay so we're doing a couple of kick starters as you've probably three to four kick starters this year only for our major releases and that's a new thing because we can do that because of all of the it's 40 plus kick successful kick starters under the indie game studios belt now indie boys and cards has done 40 plus kickstarter successfully they bring this amazing amount of manpower and in knowledge of how to do them well so will for that for our like here early in the year we're gonna put them up on Kickstarter and you'll see those aftershock is the first one which is gonna start within the next ten or so days and that's the allen moon game hmm can't wait for that we've had that game for about a year and we were working on it and it's in a perfect place now to to do it and do it in a really wonderful addition and then after that we're gonna go to eg Zia and then we'll continue from there so well aftershock come out this year yeah all of these games we've talked about are gonna notice aftershock Alicia Keys you will be this year they'll all be released this year without have you announced your big gin con game or is there one that's gonna be coming we have not not announced quite

1:11:27 that far out though you know we may or may not have some of these games obviou we may have aftershock by then after the Kickstarter we can make my build to get some games there for that though I don't think will fulfill like all the kick starters by then but will you know we'll say cool I want to mention one more game yes so much for a short and people go ahead yeah well come on you know I want to give you this these are really big announcements I'm giving you we know we know website it's an over the Rosenberg game that's not on the website no wait well it's there at the bottom nobody goes to websites that's it go ahead what is it is a game it's it's viola Rosenberg so so Mike my friends at Edition spill visa what about partners out in Germany went to over the width ease are the ones we've done cottage garden Indian summer and spring metal with and they went they said we want a we want you to consider doing some kind of rolling right or or something with those polyomino pieces those Tetris pieces you know on paper he's like he goes I know I don't want to do it I got a small game like that and like two weeks later he came back with the game he said this is perfect he just had one such a genius and this is not a rolling right but it's a selecting right it's a there are cards in the game where cards come out and based on the cards that come out you will draw those pieces onto a nine by nine grid I could be wrong with that 10 by 10 grid in front of you and the object of the game is to fill

1:12:57 the grid in the most way you wanna you want to try to fill all of the grid in front of you without with a pen and paper kind of thing fill that in front of you based on the cards that are coming out so everyone's gonna be selecting different cards that come out you'll ever want to have the same choice of the cards so I might choose this one you might choose that one we'll all start with a different one to begin with so our boards will start differently and as they come out the boards will fill up at some point you're not gonna be able to do any more and then you'll get scored based on how well you have filled in your entire paper in front of you so that's called second chance but rosenberg and that is a mid april release for stronghold games there you go guys I'm done that is amazing but I do have to ask so our whole thing has been in this is you know what's it take for a game to rise up and be different and you just went over tons of roles and rights rolls and rights are the big thing right now yeah is there anything about these games is gonna make you stand out from other rolling rights well I think that you're gonna see you know we have Wolfgang versed as the as the number one guy in the industry that kind of doing this this idea with GaN shrunk lever so I can see that these will all create a line where as a line they will stand out together will any one of them be like 300 thousand seller you know in two years no maybe not but as a line I think we have a an evergreen possibility to keep something growing and growing and growing year after year as long as a

1:14:28 great designers like like Wolfgang var should continue to to come up with new innovative ideas around that space rolling rights are amazing the use of of polyomino pieces are amazing there's just so many ways to do that marrying these things together creates a very interesting concept and that's what he's been he's gonna be doing with with the game bricks for instance tone you got any last words you're just sitting over there I've been doing what I do best man just sit no no my final thoughts are Steven thank you so much for seriously taking time I know you're incredibly busy schedule as we've just heard and coming on and coming on the show we we think highly of you and we'd love visiting your booth not because of the incredible treats no bath moat does have a lot to do with that but go ahead I'm trying to make the man feel good come on okay sorry I told him he was more intelligent us at the beginning of the show I was going to go the other way and say we wanted to bring somebody on this more intelligent us but instead we brought on Steven bonocore CEO and my intro was gonna be and we've brought on someone from board games since Aaron's a man who has a challenge with the English language Steve a monocle drawing those who live in glass houses should not throw chocolate bombs and I must make a statement about the chocolate bombs and Beth I spoke to her today and she may sit down relax she may not

1:16:01 make Gen Con this year her daughters having a second child right around that time of year so she might not be the at GenCon but she'll be at origins if you're gonna make art I will make origin sorry Tony I ought to bring you back some that is sad but that's okay I may not make GenCon either just taste I'm teasing okay yeah all right Steven thank you again so much we love having you on the show we can't wait thank you guys coming out over the next few months you're and thank you so much for going on this deep dive with us that's very unusual here on our DTN to get into such a deep topic but it was really cool to hear from your perspective about how things have changed over the years and how tough it is as a publisher to get something out there that's really gonna catch fire thank you guys thank you so much for having me on for an intelligent conversation versus what normally happens on this show did you tell them that we are now the background noise of podcasting yes that's our new moniker we're the background noise of podcasting or board games Kirk I guess that's beautiful well again thanks a lot guys I appreciate it so and by the way if you want to follow Steven make sure you do so on Twitter at stronghold games go to his website stronghold Gamescom where he has a wonderful pre-order program and I believe you still do that at a discount right Steven we have sweet we give free shipping and we get guarantee the games will be shipped to you before they're available elsewhere yep that is fantastic and if you do interact with Steven on Twitter you are interacting with Stephen you are not interacting with some flunky he has

1:17:31 promised this he promises this it's not Pauline Pauline not do some of the stuff now on I she only posts there but I do all the responses yes and also you make sure to join their Facebook page to stronghold games on Facebook because he post all of his releases and everything there and I believe he also has a mailing list which you can join on the stronghold website where he'll will send you updates on new games that are coming out thank you so much guys always a pleasure I do enjoy listening to a podcast you guys do a great job even with that horrible accent but we will talk to again to you soon thanks and remember if you listen this podcast you may be entered into a drawing drawing yes and it will be an amazing drawing at portal games PL slash Ian you were thinking nasi would change his website or get another one for me so I could just make it's a portal dot-com but I'm sure that's already taken he will probably will portal Khan has just occurred all the announcements are there but we're recording before then so we can't talk about them here on this segment but you know we'll be talking about him in the future all I know is that Steven has promised almost promises strong home but undead

1:19:02 in this interview so maybe a portal con we've heard more about it but it better be coming out I'm so excited and of course we've got detective and we know that there are other expansions probably in the work cuz ignosi will not let this sleep he's going to ride the wave on the detective train or surf board or anyway be sure to go check out the announcements from portal con amp portal games pls last year five minutes initiative begins in three two one Marty and I got to sit down to play a very popular game that was at Gen Con that was ever Dell designed by James a Wilson published by Starlin Games and Marty this game we talked about table presence was Steven this game has it with a big ol freaking tree in the middle of it and squirrels squirrels and bunnies and turtles the components are top-notch in this game right oh my goodness yes in fact it was we were playing it everybody's come by what game is that because the board is not square mm-hm it's a really unique shaped board with that big old tree in the middle so it looks fantastic on the table not only that but it is almost Toni proof in rule to teaching that's right you can do three things Marty even I can remember this without looking at the rules you can't place a worker on the board you can play a card by playing

1:20:34 either they're paying the resources that it requires or having a card kind of like oh I don't know seven wonders that can link to it so you can play it automatically or you can prepare for the next season now Marty placing a worker you place a worker you gather the resources or take advantage of the text that's out there that's pretty self-explanatory right yes it is it's just the fact that it's kind of the worker placement portion is matched with putting these cards in the play that becomes an engine builder much like a game you know you dimension seven wonders or something like a mural settlers but it's not an engine it's a city and you can have 15 city tiles now the city gives either constructions or buildings or critters if there's a construction like the end there may be a critter called the ink keeper and you don't have to pay the innkeeper's cost if the end is sitting on your board so you got to look for those I don't wanna say combos Marty but requirements right I mean what it is somewhat of a combo because many times when I was playing the game if I had a particular building that I could get a critter for free then I would look through the market for that critter or look in my hand so you can either play cards from your hand or from a market that's out on the board but if you don't have that and like you said these resources that you're gathering over the course of the game berries in wood and resin you can use that to to build the buildings to get get the critters out but once you get the cards in play then much like many engine builders they have abilities it may say hey guess what whenever you do this you get this or there's a bonus by

1:22:05 doing this you earn this so there's one these things where you start chaining things together over the course of the game to where by the very end one little action will trigger this which triggers that which triggers that with the whole goal of trying to gain victory point that's right get victory points are for the win as always now there is one thing I'll talk about in this game that is very that I would consider unique this step called prepare for the next season mm-hmm there's not these known rounds or no way to saying okay everybody gets this amount of turns this is very unique to me in that once you are done playing for you've placed all your workers and you can't do any more you don't want playing more cards you may prepare for the next season and this allows you to take an additional worker off the tree or two depending on which season you're in there may be some production in that and you begin now if I prepare for the season and Marty's not ready he doesn't have to he can let me go ahead and do that he doesn't have to stick with me a matter of fact Marty's engine was working so well he stayed in the summer season while I was basically sitting there done with the game yeah the theme of that's kind of odd so I may be playing in the spring season and you've already moved on to the summer but that's what makes this game unique placing workers out getting resources not unique engine building not unique it's the round thing where everybody can kind of side on their own okay now's the time for me to finish and go to the next season which gives me more workers and then there are cards in play like you said that triggers production so the production you get some special things from it I really enjoyed in what the thing that

1:23:36 made it stand out was that preparing for the season the whole round thing it does get a little long Tony because as in typical engine builders there's a lot of AP that can happen there is based on the cars now for me summoning this up I think this game is a very good game to teach beginners in the engine building is one the presence on the table I think it'd be fairly easy so I enjoyed the game it'll stay on the shelves happy that we got a chance to play it Marty how about you yeah so it's one of those things I think I would introduce the people that have never played this style of game but just understand is it's one of those games that starts out really quick and moves cruelly quick in the beginning but at the end it starts kind of slow down as people start taking their turn so there's a little bit downtime at the end but overall a solid work replacement engine building game 5-minute initiative is complete you people are going to love this we've got more special guests coming onto the show that's right now you've heard Martina talk about our upcoming adventures and I get to go to another con this year that's right I'm going to tantrum on down in the Greenville Spartanburg area of South Carolina and because we've talked about it we said you know what we're gonna bring on people who actually know about it onto the show and they're going to talk a little bit about us but I'm also going to irritate them about the incredible Kickstarter previews that they do and ask them how do they manage all those

1:25:06 smiles on the camera that's just amazing to me but joining us from tantrum house we have Melissa I must say I'm excited because we got the better halves Tony I thought it was gonna be like Kevin and Will but we got the better part of two that's right yeah we just took over the microphone and kind of kicked them out well I'm sure we'll was out getting some moose or something to maintain that heart okay beautiful hair it's a big chore and and I'm sure Kevin was trying to figure out his hat selection for the next five days I you know that's just it's just the one hat that the one had I don't know what we're gonna do when it finally dies do you wash that thing um we're just not gonna talk about that doesn't have a sweat bead can it walk across the room and jump on his head well I mean now now one thing y'all may not know but we've talked about this on the show and I'm sure the background noise of our DTN Melissa you have a hidden talent that's not so hidden but it is hidden people may not know about it and that is balloon animals yes I think I think I've made you all a squirrel before yes you are yes and I think it's been deflated some people keep their balloon animals so long that they just turn into these little shriveled pieces of latex and then they'll bring them out and show us I've had these for three years since you made us the last balloon now how did you get

1:26:39 into that incredible talent in high school and college I did a lot of missions work with kids clubs and going to other countries and balloons was one of the ways that we entertained the kids and kind of showed them love so I kind of started with that and now she shows us love with balloons quarrels so so when I'm down there I just want a sword I just want around yeah so I can poke Marty with it I can make over 200 things and kids still just want swords and dogs of course cuz I can take a sword and play with it poke people with it so is there gonna be a squirrel at the tantrum con event but we'll see maybe so first off I for I cannot believe that the Arditi n beat us at our own game event has sold out it has mm-hmm you guys sold out is already for everybody else it's sold out there they say well I've got to do that anyway okay so let's just go ahead and humble ourselves a little bit there were only two slots and both of our wives bottom I did not see any wives names listed no no it was not our wives so this is what Tony and I were torn on this so tantrum con has some incredible events what's going on over there over the three-day period in February and what are the dates again February 15th

1:28:09 16th and 17th and so they had this nice sign-up sheet where you sit down and play all different types of games and Tony and I were struggling what games should we play we couldn't decide if finally we said we're getting ready to our squirrelly reward Awards and and well hold on I've got a question for you and then a bone to pick with you and I'll come back to that in a second and so they got all these events going on so Tony you're gonna do we're going to do and we said let's just pick a game that we both like from last year but look at our school rewards list like we both like Coimbra so we picked Coimbra and we're gonna be playing that with two people and let and let them beat us so now here's the two things number oh I forgot what one of them was oh that's an age thing good gosh dude okay I know what the bone to pick oh no I know what I don't want us so we're gonna do the squirrel ease and we typically have all of you come on a present so we want to have you come on again will you come on and present another award on our squirrely show of course it will ok excellent second I saw like a couple weeks ago where you all released a video of your own tantrum house Awards where you had like oh I don't know special guest come on and do the awards like an academy is sure what I'm like video forum it was yes but it was video and not audio did you say it Tony hmm kind of I'm not happy right now show oh that's interesting there are actually having other media people present the awards oh there's actually people who

1:29:42 want the award coming onto the accept a award I was waiting for a musical number but I didn't see a musical number anywhere did they have an accounting house that's right the job accounting I can't remember uh no no we just kind of magically gave the awards okay that's fine but but you know imitation is the best you know form of flattery yeah my weekend just freed up on a Valentine weekend my wife said you're going where oh I didn't schedule it that's when they said I got to be there so what you should have done is they've gone to the Biltmore House you know on Valentine's and then swung by ours you know or you could have gone to beautiful downtown Greenville which is one of the top five destinations in the United States yes it is I saw that static stat what's - static static yeah that stat as well so before we keep giving you a hard time tantrum Colin where'd it come from what's all planned so tantrum con started the I we sparked the idea probably three or four years ago we we loved going to conventions and we liked the atmosphere of some conventions and not others and we wanted to have our own event we could make this very fun exciting experience and my husband's job is

1:31:14 running educational conventions so after getting a couple years of that under his belt he felt like he had to know how to do all the behind the scenes of a convention and so we have teamed up the tantrum house group has teamed up with Monica and Jason Raza and they are helping coordinate some of the planning's and we're hoping that this will be an awesome event and how did you guys meet the tantrum and some of us go way back well we'll actually made the logo for the balloon business that Kevin and I do hands full of fun and we all kind of knew each other from college yeah so yeah Kevin emili´s that we've known for I don't know 10 12 years now same with Ryan and Katie Katie and my husband used to work together doing marketing and then let's see Ben I I think Ben our videographer and we'll go way back to first year of college so that was I don't know 15 years ago now so 20 years ago almost 20 years ago for it with Ben and wealth so we've been friends for a long time we've been gaming friends for just about as long we still do a Monday night game night that started 11 years ago and we've done that every Monday night for the last 11 years well we're actually recording this on a Monday story ruining your game night I know we usually do a recording or two in the middle so everyone who's not on this

1:32:46 recording is actually out playing games right now so Melissa and I finished up a game and then jumped on and then we'll probably hop into another game or two before the nights up so this is really a family affair here we're talking tantrum con family affair all your families are together so I can see that so what kind of fun events do the the little chaps have in store well we have a kid's room that for about four maybe five hours each day will be manned and so parents can actually leave their kids from 6 to 12 years old into the room and we have quick simple fun I think has donated some games each kids basically gonna be able to get a free game there's gonna be games for their age level in that room we also have a Mars open tournament that we're going to be doing that's the game where you flick the folded golf balls around and we're gonna have a prize for kids and then a prize for adults I think we're giving away six games of Mars open for the top three in each category now when I'm at tantrum condom I'm gonna have the ability to play some the Kickstarter's that you guys do incredible previews on yes we have a list of prototypes that we will be bringing that some of them are games that will be on Kickstarter during the event some of them are a couple of them are top secret ones that we can't even talk about right now because they're not going to be announced for the next

1:34:16 couple weeks but they'll be available at tantrum con and then some of them are games that a lot of people don't have their hands on yet games like wingspan and some of the others that we may have a pre-release of so you can try them out at the con before you get your copy and speaking of kick starters if you all have never checked out tantrum houses YouTube channel you need to they do tons of great kickstarter previews plus just basic accounting game reviews and you guys are just pumping out videos like crazy this is this isn't your full-time job though right I mean you have other jobs yes I think I'm the only one in the group that doesn't work full time but I homeschool our kids so pretty much so how in the world do you have time to constantly put out I mean how many videos you put out a week it's basically one a day so seven videos a week what the we can't even do an episode every other week Tony and audios episode we have three couples who are doing reviews and then Ben is a videographer who does some of our videos Kevin and I we have about three different game groups that we play with so we're playing a lot of games now we don't have any kids so we have a little bit more time and I know everyone else is playing lots of games too you got a lot more time if you don't have any kids I'm alright Tony yeah my mood back home and she's 22 we do have some of our work we have help from Larry the apprentice

1:35:49 and intern dan and then we just took on another intern Andrew we need an intern Tony what's it take to get an intern once again I'll remind you what I said on the last show I thought I was no I'm not so I mean one of the things I know from y'all did a thing about reshooting your intro that is probably one of the coolest aunt Rose ever well if we just released in the last week or two I'm not sure if you're talking about the new one or the last one the one that's been out for the last year you can still watch the old one on all the old videos but all the videos released this year I would say it's definitely like two steps up from the last one yes okay that's good see I actually watch their stuff Tony if you go to tantrum house on YouTube you can see it well I go to tantrum house on Kickstarter you know the one where they previewed all the kick starters and I'm going through the Kickstarter list because as an intern that's my job so some of the new ones coming up for the kick starters in the next couple weeks should have our new intro on them cuz we have recorded them recently well I get to see Kevin flick cards actually he does a magic trick involving a board game but I won't spoil it any more than that I'll let you go watch it again that's tantrum house on YouTube ton just go search for tantrum house that's probably youtube.com slash tantrum house I bet yes I believe so

1:37:20 I'm sure there's a Facebook page too I could probably catch Eck it out yes and there's probably like a Twitter account

1:37:26 he's probably like at tantrum house I believe it's tantrum underscore house and I'm sure there's an Instagram account - there is an Instagram account at tantrum house underscore or house tantrum house or is a tantrum underscore house I believe underscore house C Marty you can't get on me about not knowing our stuff here they and they and they call I'm just saying so this this convention is going to be over the course of three days you've got some big events going on but I have a my real concern is what kind of foods gonna be there well this is the south and we are known for pretty great food so we have some events that have food so one event I believe is it Friday night we have an event hosted by bezzie a games and it is a New York slice tournament we're gonna have a giant pizza party and we have tons of copies of games to give away to the winners of those events and then we also have a VIP dinner that will feature the tantrum house crew and some of our VIP guests so Melissa why don't you tell us about that yeah so Richard Linnaeus and JB Howell our designers will be at that event I'm assuming that you all will be there as our media guests if you haven't you know left at that point what time Oh

1:39:00 what time is it 6:00 p.m. oh you should be there that's early it's food involved it is it is a Carolina barbecue buffet oh yeah we will be there yes it has grill barbecue chickens most smoked brisket and it's supposed to have a batman-themed because of the new animated Gotham under siege game that Richard designed nice yeah okay we'll be there Tony oh well you're driving now you're driving I'm driving yeah I'm coming to your house and then you're gonna drive us right sure that means you leave when I leave that like this okay we'll eat good after we eat yeah I'm already in hot water enough um filin times weekend with my wife what are you doing for dinner that night well I mean some good bar here's a tip you could surprise for the weekend before Valentine's Day and have that whole weekend planned with her and then have an their bonus weekend at tantrum con so she's got two weekends filled with all kinds of excitement okay yeah that's my birthday weekend like I got a plan my own birthday so I got a deal with is all the planning done are you locked in are you ready to go or you still droppin events on the schedule we just added a few events I think we're pretty locked in double exposure on void they're gonna be running some tournaments those are some new things for the South Carolina state championships for certain games and

1:40:32 we've just learned that we're gonna have about 100 play to win games oh so many opportunities for guests to come away with games no it's not too late to to get a badge or a pass right oh no no there are still the premium badges are almost sold out I believe we're down well during the recording there were five left but those may be gone by the time this recording goes alive but there are still plenty about regular badge sales and kids badges oh nice and what are the prices of those and where can they get them so at tabletop events you can go on to the tantrum con you can also get to our page through W tantrum con-com and then there's a get your badge button there the regular badges are $60 and that's for all three days Friday Saturday and Sunday the premiere badges that may be gone or ninety and then kids are twenty five and that six to twelve if they're under six then it's free that's a good deal Tommy I agree with you I'm sorry I'm distracted I'm watching the tantrum house Awards here wondering what wondering I'm wondering if how I'd look in that hey can I borrow that skirt I mean that's a flashy she's got this flashy skirt for arm this is getting this is get away that's why our show is an audio and there's this video they can pull off the video stuff we can well you know we

1:42:04 may need more hosts next year because we're thinking about adding more categories okay well we could definitely do so I mean y'all been y'all helped us out on our show so you just tell us whatever you need and we'll do it for you that sounds like a plan yeah we'll have to have you guys on for next year we have pride oh no there were probably like 10 categories that people like you didn't use this category well we are very excited to be heading your way heading down south to go to tantrum con hopefully this will be a yearly thing an annual thing yes is it gonna be a yearly thing it will be both yeah we're already negotiating with the hotels for next year and working out plans and planning ahead for the following years and we're very excited about it it's gonna be super cool event there's gonna be RPG events some of those are still available on the event list if you haven't signed up and you're interested in RPGs and then there are still several of the tournaments that are available as well right there's gonna be Catan national qualifier there's gonna be key forage tournaments I think one of them with a cash prize so lots of stuff going on okay Marty what can I bring my key Forge deck of course you can what your one deck my one deck that I bought and got lucky to get yeah okay maybe I'll let you play it since you understand that game better than me well ladies thank you so much for coming on we can't wait to get down there and hang out with y'all for a bit and again for anybody else that wants to attend you can still

1:43:34 get passes at tantrum tantrum con-com and obviously they've got their YouTube page at a tantrum house and all the little social media stuff that we went over earlier ladies again thank you so much y'all do a fantastic job with your reviews and your videos and everything y'all won big-time tons of subscribers on YouTube almost a video every day it's crazy so that that's amazing well thank you so much Friday yeah this is lots of fun thank you do I not get a thanks what am i okay

1:44:14 now Tony before we brought bonocore on the show we said okay mr. bonocore your save miss cover gonna be 20 to 30 minutes we ought to know better you know we ought to know better just take what we think it's gonna be and just multiply it by two when he comes on the show he's too much fun let's listen he is a bus it was just really cool hearing his from him about how he decides you know what games he's gonna get and his experience as a publisher over the years about realizing how games many years ago were a little bit easier to catch fire than what they are today and how there's so much pressure on him as a publisher what games to put out when to reprint whether to reprint should I make an expansion for this so they there's a lot of thought that goes into this and I said there's thousands of games that come out each year a lot of them barely even see the light of day but all these decisions are being made with every single game that comes out and some of it is a crapshoot I think and I mean I think it was Kickstarter once again and said in 2018 you know games were leading the charge board games they were the top money get her if I remember correctly I can't verify that right now because the Internet has really gotten slow here at the house but that's okay why would target invest in shelf space for board games expanding her expanding that if it wasn't on this week by the way the joke that failed at the beginning of the show okay hey you just let me do the intro again saying do the joke right now I tell you what what we'll save it for our little

1:45:44 outtake at the end people can wait for it okay sounds good Oh Marty I can't believe it you know I over on our BG guild number one five eight nine I posted a poll about have you bought a game yet in 2019 and I selected no I'm thinking about various Kickstarter's I didn't do it I went ahead and bought a game what'd you buy the game what game did I buy you would ask me that well the first one is something we played at Gen Con and it was the game I'll mess it up see you see I you be it was that dice rolling game amigo games it's about you're manipulating dice you know me sucker for a dice game I'm sure I really am about that it's a game that I enjoyed but then I bought that really hot this was a hype buy a hype game and that is that Mayan building game TIA tt hot gun city of go look it up watch this you ready Ella taught me this from Ella does board games ready here goes take it to walking say it again heya to walking woo chills anyway also I had to learn to say it when I was doing the top 10 video for miniature market that was on there one time it was like Santa walking ten to walk and walk and tell you to walk and a it to walking yes I bought that so I'm excited about us getting that to the table so that there were my that was an impulse it was hot by I saw it on the

1:47:16 new release I know it sold out last time and I said well I'm gonna go ahead and grab one before it sells out again and as of this show it still had think they still have close to 300 copies should wait for the draw for the drop that's so - go for the draw oh but yeah I'm really excited because you know in cube you can keep rolling dice and taking names once again a big thanks to all our guests coming on the show today and a big thanks to you for listening to us if you want to you can follow us on twitter at dice and names join our bgg guild one five eight nine balls on instagram dice and names or you can like us on facebook and if you want to support the show you can do so at either pod pledge calm /rd teen or podge pledge calm /rd team thou shalt not pitch Feeny was gonna be funny

1:48:30 you heard Steven talk about terraforming Mars and the fact that yes he admits his player boards may not be what you won't well we've got the solution for you that's right over at the broken token that's what's in our copy of terraforming Mars the broken token solution are there player boards for that game so if you're thinking about after listening to Steven going out and getting your copy be sure to go ahead over to the broken token comm check those things out Marty those things do make that game so much more enjoyable okay the game was already enjoyable but it just holds the pieces in place loved those game trades because you can actually leave all the pieces inside the game tray and they stack on top of each other and it fits nicely in the box that's over at the broken token dot-com you