Games of the month VLOG - December 25

0:00 Hi, my name is Paul Gro and welcome to my games of the month video log for December 2025. I'm recording this video on Friday the 2nd of January 2026. And I'm going to be talking about all of the games that I played since the last video log, which includes the very end of November 2025. I'm hopefully going to get it edited this afternoon and maybe over the weekend, get it released for patron supporters this weekend, and it should be made public on Monday. And first of all, happy new year. I'm recording this video in 2026, even though I'm only going to be talking about the games that I played at the end of last year. And as always, if you are one of my Patre supporters, then in addition to this video log, you get access to a bonus vlog where I actually use the PubMle ranking system and I rank all of the games that I've played in the last basically all of the ones that I talked about in this video. Now, that video, which is for Patreon supporters only, does include an extra little bit of added narrative and detail about some of the games that I played, which you won't find in this video. So, the first thing to talk about is the games day held at my local games group, which is at the end of November, 2025. This was on the 30th of November, and I got three games played that day. The first game that I played was Railway Boom. Now, I've spoken about Railway Boom before on my previous video logs. It is a fantastic game. It's definitely in my top 10 of 2025. I really enjoy the way that it plays. I really enjoy the whole flow of the game. The theme of the game is trains. You are building up railway

1:30 networks in Japan, but that's not the main reason why I like this game. Also, this game has lots and lots of auctions. I think it's got maybe 20 auctions or at least 16 auctions in the whole game. And I'm not a big auction fan, but it's just the way that the whole game fits together. So, I've spoken about it before. I have done a playthrough video on the channel if you were interested. I did a partly sponsored playthrough video. Thank you very much to Chrono Creations for that. Chrono Creations had a good year compared to last year where I think none of the Crano games that came out I was particularly um there was one of them that I was excited about but then ended up being quite disappointing. Whereas the three games that they've had this year, Railway Boom, Ants, and even Echoes of Time for a lighter game, I've enjoyed all three of those and would happily play those again. But Railway Boom, fantastic. Really love the game. If you want to know more about it, there is a playthrough video on my channel from a few weeks ago. It takes up to four players. I'm not sure it has a solo mode. It might do. I can't remember. But yeah, it just plays really well, plays really smoothly, and it doesn't take too long. The second game that I played that day was Seven Empires. Now, Seven Empires is a game which I have also spoken about before on the channel a number of times, and this was a game that I wasn't planning to play that day, but some of the people that were there wanted to play it, really enjoy the game. I really enjoy the game. It's not from 2025. I think it's from 2024. And I really enjoy Seven Empires designed by Mac Girtz, published by PD Verlag. It is an evolution of the imperial system where the players are actually get with

3:00 they've got influence in the different empires. So you as a player, you will have influence in different empires. And if it gets to France's turn and you have the most influence in France, then you get to play as France. That's not exactly how it works. for those of you that know the game, but you get the idea. Basically, the control of the empires over the course of the game, changes between the players depending on who's got the most influence over it at the time. It plays really well. It's one of those games which a lot of people might think, "Oh, Paul, why do you like this game? It's got lots of interaction between the players and stuff like that." And yeah, if you play with the wrong group, they're going to get uh, you know, very argumentative with each other, which kind of happened in our game with a couple of the players. But um yeah, it it's it's one of those games. I'm not very good at it. I'm not very good at working out which country to get influence in, but I just I just love the way that the game plays and always enjoy a game of Seven Empires.

3:55 And then finally that day, Mark taught me how to play Wiswood. Now, I've played Whiswood a few times in December, at least twice, maybe three times, and I am due to do a sponsored playthrough of Whiswood for Czech Games Edition at some point later this year. I believe February, I think the second weekend or the second Friday in February, either the first or the second Friday in February, I've got Wiswood booked in. So, I am going to be doing a sponsored playthrough video of it because CGE originally got me to do a video of it in December, but then they contacted me and they said, "Look, Paul, the US release is not going to be probably until end of January, start of February, so can you move your playthrough video to then?" And I said, "No problem whatsoever, but I have played it myself." And if you want my honest thoughts on Whisbud, I do really enjoy it. A lot of people have been giving this game a lot of praise and quite rightly so. This isn't a massive big epic game from CGE. This is a nice light game where you're tile laying and you've got cute cats and effectively you're putting tiles down into various patterns to try and get points. There are these objective cards.

5:02 I think there are four or five objective cards each game and they will tell you how you score the points. You play the game over three rounds and in the first round you're building up this small grid. I believe it's 5x5, might be 4x4, can't remember. But anyway, you're building this grid of tiles by taking these tiles from a central area, which is quite clever mechanism. And you're placing them into your own little forest with certain rules and restrictions. And then at the end of round one, you will score based on these objectives. Now, in round two, some of your tiles will stay, some of them will go, and then you play round two and you're trying to build a bigger forest. And then same thing happens round three and you're trying to build a bigger one. So whilst it might appear to be a nice light simple tile lane game, although the rules of the game are quite simple, there is a lot of I'm going to say depth for a lighter game in where you place the tiles because the tile some of the tiles that you place are going to stay from one round to the next. And therefore, if you've got these objectives that are going to score at the end of each round, well, you want to make sure you do really good placements for round one because those tiles are going to stay for rounds two and round three. So, there's quite a bit of skill in what you put where whilst trying to meet the condition of various objective cards and yeah, I' I've played it a few times now and I really like it and I'm looking forward to playing it more. The start of December was my week off work. So, for those of you that don't know, to celebrate my Patreon supporters reaching a certain milestone, I think it was 1,250, I basically announced that I'm going to take the first week in December off work every year and I'm going to play games and I'm going to live stream

6:33 playing games. So again, sorry for boring you with this because I know lots of you have heard this story lots of times before. But for those of you that are new to the channel or watching these videos for the first time, I have traditionally taken the first week off work in July to coincide with my birthday and I'm now going to be taking the first week in December off as well. So as long as the Patreon sport stays where it is or goes up, then I will be continuing to do this. And when I say it's a week off work, what I mean is it's a week where I live stream more games than I normally stream in a week. It's a really, really busy week, but none of the videos are sponsored in any way. And as usual, all of the advertising revenue goes to charity. Now, all of the advertising revenue from all of my videos always goes to charity.

7:18 That's nothing new. But the fact is that week is a week where I am working really hard, but not being paid for any of it. But it's fantastic and I don't want to stop doing it. I want to continue to do it. So, a huge thank you to all of my Patreon supporters for making these week off work uh fantastic, really enjoyable. And this time, I actually did games that were voted on by my Patreon supporters. Now, a few of you reached out to me and said, "Paul, why don't you play the games that you want to play?" But what you're not understanding is when I put the poll up to my Patre supporters and say, "Here's 20 games. Which of these games do you want me to play? I'd love to play any of them." Yes, I have slight preferences for one or the other. But I'm more than happy to do that. And for me, I get a lot of enjoyment in giving something back to my patron supporters and allowing them to choose the games that I'm going to play. So, it wasn't all games chosen by my patron supporters. Two of the days were down to to to my choice. All of these videos are on the channel. If you are interested in any of these videos that I'm going to talk about now, these are all on the channel and none of them were sponsored, which means you do get our honest opinions of the games in those videos in addition to the actual playthrough itself. So Monday was Quartermaster General East Front followed by South Front. Now the Quart tom Master General series of games I've spoken out about before on the channel. They are generally five to six player World War II themed war games that are card driven. But the quartermaster general east front and south front are two-player games. Bill came over for the afternoon eventually got caught in

8:50 traffic and was about an hour and a half late. But he got here and we played two fantastic games. I loved both of those games. Quartermaster General East front is the Germans and the Soviets and quarter master general south front is the Germans, the the other forces that helped out with Germany including Italy whilst fighting against the British and later on in the war the Americans and everything else. What these games focus on is supply lines and clever use of cards. Every card in the game has two uses. You can play the card for its action where it will do what it will say on the card. And a lot of those are historically correct with things that happened in the game, uh things that happened in real life, or you can save the card for the reactions. And the reactions are where the really tactical part of the combat comes in. Because it isn't just, oh, I'm attacking you there, play a card, remove a unit, that's it.

9:39 You get this really interesting interplay between the way that the attacking and defending forces work. Oh, I'm blocking that attack. I'm using anti-air to shoot down your aircraft. I'm Oh, I was doing that. The battles end up being quite cinematic for just a simple system of playing cards and removing units. So, East Front and South Front, whilst they are in the same series of games and they follow a lot of the same rules, there are some very big fundamental differences between both games. In East Front, you get two actions a turn and in South Front, you get one. Now, that might not sound like a big change. There's a few other changes as well, but it feels like a very different game. I'm not sure which one I prefer. They do feel different. If you own one of them, I and you enjoy that one, I would recommend getting the other one, but the games feel different.

10:29 And having played them back to back, I think I've got a leaning towards South Front, although I really like the East Front Theater in the way that that works. So yeah, I want to play both of those games again. I really enjoyed both of them. And later on this year, apparently Quartermaster General West Front is coming out, which is going to be another two-player game set in the Quarter Master General Front series. But there is a way that you can combine all the games together for one big epic six-hour game. It's going to be great and I will be doing that maybe later this year. I I want to. So, it's just a case of uh trying to fit that in and making sure that the players who are playing that game are experienced with it and we know what we're getting into because otherwise the game's going to be a bit of a mess. So, yeah, Quartermaster General, East Front, South Front on the channel now if you're interested in those. Tuesday, I did two games. The first one, and again voted on by my patron supporters, but a game that I really enjoy. Canban Eevee, designed by Vitil Lerta, published by Eagle Griffin Games. I have done sponsored videos for this game in the past. I did the official how to play video for the game.

11:35 I wrote the rule book for the game. Uh, but this was not a sponsored playthrough video. And KBANev is very much up there in my top three Lerta games, I think. Yeah. So yeah, I really enjoy Kamban Eevee. It's a game that I will happily play again. And I'll be honest with you, I've got all of Vital Lassard's games that have been published by Eagle Griffin Games. And there are some of them that I will be happy never to play again. I've played them and some of them I enjoyed more than others. There's a couple of them that I didn't really enjoy, but with limited time and everything else, it would be too easy for me to say, "Oh, and I'd happily play any of them again." That's just not true. If I'm ever in a situation where I'm, you know, pinned down and somebody says, "Paul, play Alerta game right now." I'd be like, "Okay." But you can choose which one. I'll be like, "Right, okay. Right." It would be one of three or four out of all of the ones that he's published. And that's just because I enjoy them more than others. And Kamban is definitely in there in my top three Lerta games. I don't know exactly where because I need to play speak easy more.

12:36 So yeah, Kan was in the afternoon and that is on the channel. if you want to head over to the channel and find that. That would have been on I don't know like the 3rd of December or something like that, but it's on the channel. Feel free to check it out. And we do have a round the table discussion at the end of that game with people sharing their thoughts on the game. In the evening, I played a game of Star Trek Captain's Chair, but this was not on the public channel. This was a patronon exclusive bonus video for my patron supporters because I got to show off two of the new captains that are not out yet. I have a very early pre-production copy of Star Trek Captain's Chair to Boldly Go, which is the second box that's going to come with the game. And Whiz Kids kindly gave me permission to do a Patreon only stream where I got to play two of the new captains. So, we played Kirk versus Giorgio and Rick came over in the evening and yeah, it it was great. There's not much that I can say about Captain's Chair that I haven't already said. It is a top five game for me for 20 for 2025. I love the game. I think it's fantastic. I am professionally involved in the game in a number of different aspects and I will be continuing to be professionally involved in the game and I will be doing some public playthrough videos of the various captains from to boldly go box at some point later this year. Not January, probably February or March. I need to speak to Whiz Kids about exactly when we're going to be doing that. So, I can't really give you too much information about it other than the fact that that was my first time playing the

14:07 Kirk deck. And if you know Star Trek Captain's Chair, the first time you play a deck is a complete and utter car crash nightmare mess. And it was. I had no idea what I was doing. I was making really bad decisions, suboptimal choices, and I lost the game really badly. But I got to play Star Trek Captain's Chair and I got to play New Captain Kirk. It was interesting in the way that the deck works. It is different from the other ones and I need to play it more to get more experience with it to see how it really works. Now, the one one captain that I am looking forward to that is coming out in the new box is Khan. Star Trek 2 is still my favorite Star Trek film that there has ever been. And Khan is such a great character and the new captain works in an extremely different way. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to that one. Um, so that was it.

14:58 That was Tuesday. Wednesday, nobody came around on Wednesday. I played The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era all day. And this is on the channel if you want to watch it. It was three parts. Each part was about three to four hours long and I managed to do the whole solo a whole solo campaign in one day. We played in Veilenwood. We stuck in Veilenwood for the entire campaign and I loved it. Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era. I've not done my top games of 2025 yet, but it is currently my number one game of 2025. I'm not sure anything is going to beat that. Galactic Cruise was very, very close. But yeah, Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era, currently my favorite game that was released in 2025 and in my top five of all time. The game is utterly fantastic. I have done a video on this game if you are interested in knowing more. It's from Chip Theory Games, who are a client of mine. And uh yeah, I I I have done a sponsored playthrough video of this game, just full disclosure. But the game is a cross between Too Many Bones and Hopler Marcus, but I much prefer it to both of those. I don't think I'll ever play Too Many Bones again for various reasons, but for me, Elder Scrolls has completely replaced it. It hasn't replaced Hopplam Marcus. I still enjoy Hoplamarcus, but it has the tactical combat nature of Hoplamarcus and Hoplamarcus Victorium whilst bound

16:29 together in an RPG like game where you've got character progression, leveling up and things like that. Too many Bones has that as well, but I find the Too many Bones system a little bit it's just not it's not suited to me. Whereas the Elder Scroll system is brilliant. So yes, I was very very happy at the end of that day. I got to do a full campaign playthrough of Elder Scrolls betrayal of the second era solo. So that's that's it. If you want to see that, that was that. Thursday was the special day. Uh many of my patron supporters had contacted me and said, "Paul, when are you going to do another Fighting Fantasy book?" Because I've done a few of these in the past. These books are probably the reason why I am doing this video today. Because in 1982, or was it 1983? 1983, I think, a 13-year-old me walked into a bookshop and saw Warlock of Fire Top Mountain.

17:25 Bought it, played it, loved it. That led me into Dn D. That led me into other games. That led me, that's why I'm here now. So, literally, the Warcraft Fight Mountain fighting fantasy book is very likely the main reason why I am doing what I do now for a for a living and a job and my life and everything else. So, I owe a lot to these books and every so often I do a live playthrough of a fighting fantasy book and I've done a few in the past over the last four years or so. And on Thursday of that week, I did Sword of the Samurai. Now, this was voted on by my patron supporters. I gave them a whole bunch of books to vote for. And this one and Death Trap Dungeon were the two that had the most votes. Now, Death Trap Dungeon generally regarded as one of the better books.

18:10 I didn't want to do that one because I wanted to do Sword of the Samurai. And the reason why I wanted to do Sword of the Samurai is because I figured everybody knows Deathstrap Dungeon. I mean, not everybody knows it, but I know it. It's generally regarded as a good one. It'd be too easy for me to do that one. I thought I'll give I'll give a different one a chance. And I'd never played Sword of the Samurai. It was book number 20, and it was actually not written by Ian Livingston or Steve Jackson. So, a lot of the books, first of all, all credit to Ian and Steve because they're the ones that came up with this book system, but a lot of the books has Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston presents W, you know, the name of the book, whatever, but it's actually written by other people. And Sword of the Samurai was written by other people and I loved it. It was great. Now, I did a few playthrough. I did I did two videos that day, one in the afternoon and one in the evening.

19:00 Those are on the channel if you want to go and check them out. We didn't succeed by the end of it. In fact, what was really interesting is the first playthrough that we did in the afternoon, we got all the way to the end and then we didn't succeed at the end and then the se and then we redid it and this time I went a different way and that time I died loads and I think in the evening play through I probably died about five or six times. But anyway, the reason why I like this game is for me, whilst I have a lot of love for the Fighting Fantasy books, a lot of them are very dated in the way that they work and they contain certain things where if you don't do a particular thing correctly, you you're just going to die. Well, Sword of the Samurai was interesting because when you got to the final battle, there were actually different ways to achieve the goals of victory. And essentially, right from the very start of the story, you can go left or you can go right. And both of those ways lead to completely different stories, but they end up in the same place. And actually, for the purpose of winning the game, unlike some of the previous books, it didn't matter which way you went at the start. Now, when I say didn't matter, what I mean is you are trying to collect certain items in order to I don't want to give too many spoilers away. in order to unlock certain things at the end of the adventure so that you can beat the final boss.

20:25 And there are two different ways to unlock the special powers that you need at the very end. And each of those two ways, one can be found one way, one can be found the other. In other words, if you go left and you do all of the right things, you can still you can win at the end. And if you go right and do all of the right things, you can win at the end. Um, and I I thought that was really good. and the two stories that you go through on different sides were both really good. So, didn't manage to complete the book, got got pretty much to the vi final battle uh and just and just failed because didn't have the right items that I needed at the end. If I'd have had more time, yes, I would have played more and we would have continued and at some point I will hopefully do that just to get completion and closure on that book. But those videos are on the channel if you're interested. Fighting fantasy sword of samurai book number 20. And then on the Friday, big day. Well, in fact, it was Friday and Saturday. So, in the afternoon, I did Underwater Cities with the new data era expansion. Data era or data age, data era, I think, on the channel. Now, if you want to go and see it, not a sponsored playthrough, which means we give our opinions on the game at the end. And that I think was m maybe the only new game that I covered in that week. Now, Underwater Cities is not a new game, but Underwater Cities had a new expansion this year, the data era, and we played with that new expansion.

21:49 So, yeah, if you want to know more about that expansion and how it works, check out that video, but I will give you a quick summary of it. Now, Underwater Cities is a fantastic game. It is probably my favorite Vladimir game. He's done some really great ones over the years, but that is my favorite. and data era. I think I'm not going to say it fixes problems with the base game because I don't think there's any problems with the base game, but it opens up the options because it gives you this new resource which is data which is a little CD. Uh, and it comes in halves as well, which is a little unusual, but anyway, and you can use this for various things. So, your turns are actually a little bit more involved now, which means the game might be a slight bit longer. Not much longer, maybe 5% longer, maybe 10%, but worth it because some of the things that they allow you to do are swap one resource for another resource. Ah, so many times in a game of underwater cities, you're like, "Right, I want to build a city.

22:48 I've got that. I've got that. Oh, I'm missing the steel plast." Oh, right. Oh, I've got loads of this, but I'm missing a steel path. Right. Well, this new resource allows you to swap one thing for another thing. So, that's really good. It also if you spend some of these extra data resources allows you when you are building an installation or whatever they're called to build on one of the spaces which is normally reserved because there's only limited ways that you can build on those spaces normally and in this game you now have another way of doing it. So it it gives you more options. It gives you more control over the game and I will probably never play without it. Whereas the museum expansion, I think I've only ever played once and I won't play with that again. I don't Well, I might do, but I think the base game with the new expansion is is enough. Yeah. So, I really enjoyed that.

23:37 That is on the channel. Then in the evening, I played Anacrony. Again, this is another game voted on by my patron supporters as one of the games that they wanted to see on the channel. It got lots of votes, and I was very happy about that because I love Anacrony. I think the game is great. I've played it quite a few times. I don't know how many times I played it, but I always enjoy the game and I think it is a really really super solid game and it's quite old now. I can't remember the year that Anacrin came out, but yeah, it it it would be classed as an older game, but it still holds up. It is still so good. Now, the one thing that I do want to mention about Anacrony is it was actually a lot lighter than I remembered. And this might be a perception problem. So I remember Anacrony being medium to heavy. That's where that's where I remembered the game being. And I hadn't played it for a while, but when I started playing it that evening and I was actually teaching it to somebody else as well, I was like, "This isn't that complicated at all." And I actually think it's just one of those things that because I've played it a lot and the rules to me just make complete sense and everything flows really well that it doesn't feel that complicated to a new player. It probably is. There's probably a huge amount of stuff going on. But that's the point where I want to get to with lots of games. And this is one of the disadvantages of being a gamer in the

25:07 gaming hobby right now and being a content creator in the gaming hobby right now. It is very very rare that I can get to that position with a game where I can just go and I can just enjoy this game and I could teach somebody without even looking at the rule book and not worry about it and not worry about forgetting rules or anything like that. And out of the last couple of years, there's only two or three games that I could do that with. Colution being one of them. And Anacriny, yeah, really enjoyed it. Really glad to have gone back to it. Now, I have the big big box for Anacrin. And we just played base game that day. We didn't play with any of the expansions whatsoever. I remember when Fractures of Time came out and I remember playing it two or three times with Fractures of Time and it changed the game so much. And those of us that played Anacrony at that time and loved Anacrony, we played it with Fractures of Time and we all went, "We're never going to play this game without Fractures of Time now. It makes the game so much better." However, I've not gone back to Fractures of Time. And the reason for that is I personally don't believe that teaching fractures of time is a good thing for new players. I think it's a great expansion. I think it really changes the game and it makes the game better, but it's for experienced players only. And every time I've gone back to Anacron, I've never been in that situation. Let me know what you think.

26:32 If you are an anacrony fan, would you ever play Fractures of Time with new players? And if so, how did it go? Did they run out screaming with their brains exploding? Um, anyway, Anacrony on the channel now if you're interested in that. It was a three-player game, full tutorial at the start because one of the players was new and then we played it and yeah, that's that's on the channel now. Right. On the Saturday, I did a few things. The first thing is Voidfall cooperative mode threeplayer. So, this was Saturday morning. Again, this is on the channel now. If you're interested, go back to the start of December. Saturday morning, three player cooperative voidfall. I was professionally involved in Voidfall. I did the official how to play video for the game and I've done a sponsored playthrough. But again, like all of the games that week, none of these were sponsored. Cooperative Voidfall, I think now is the best way to play the game because the cooperative mode, which is also the same as the solo mode, the the cooperative mode is essentially the solo mode but with more players. It's so good and it actually fixes one of the issues that I have with Voidfall. Now, I love Void Ball and I think it is a masterpiece of a game and it's brilliant, but my only issue with the game is that it many many games of it I've played without PvP fighting. Now, I don't go in for that in games. games where you've got direct player versus player conflict, I don't normally go in forall,

28:04 but in Voidfall, I kind of want that a bit. And I've played a couple of multiplayer games of Voidfall, and we've selected some of the scenarios in the game which are high in conflict, and we've not had any conflict. And I think the reason for that is because the game is actually quite short. You might be thinking, "No, it's not. It's like a 4-hour game." Yeah, but you only get three cycles in the game. And in each cycle, you will only be performing on average four, five, and then six actions, I believe, or cards at least. And only some of those cards allow you to attack. So, I think you probably only have the opportunity to attack maybe five or six times in the game. and you have the void sectors. And attacking the void sectors is generally always good because you're going to get loads of rewards and then you're going to be attacking the fallen houses. Sometimes when I've played this game, we've gone into the game expecting that there would be quite a bit of PvP conflict and action and things like this and there ended up hasn't been. And I've been in the situation where I'm like, well, I I could attack them, but actually there's a void sector here where the rewards for taking that are much higher than if I attack them. And if I attack them, they're probably going to want more and retaliate. So, I think the incentives for attacking the void sectors are higher and therefore people are

29:35 dissuaded from attacking other players. Anyway, it's only a minor minor problem that I have with the game and I'd still happily play it multiplayer because the efficiency puzzle of how you run your empire with the threat of potential war is still extremely extremely good. But the cooperative mode is just amazing. I mean, the cooperative mode of the game is most of the rules for the multiplayer version of the game, but you're fighting against an enemy which has got crisis cards coming which you've got to deal with. And for me, playing that three-player cooperative was one of the best experiences I've had at playing Voil. I love cooperative games. I love the fact that we really sit down and we try to work out how we're going to do this. And one of the best things about that game, spoilers, we didn't win by a country mile. It didn't matter. The experience of playing that game and trying to solve the crisis and trying to do well, that was the experience. That was the game. And I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. Sure, when we added up the points at the end, we didn't win.

30:41 Could we have done better if we played better? Yeah. Yeah, sure we could have done, but it was still a thoroughly enjoyable game. And yeah, that was Voidfall. Again, video is on the channel if you want to see a threeplayer cooperative playthrough of Voidfall. That is on the channel. In the afternoon, what did I do in the afternoon? Whispalked about Whiswood. Uh there was another couple of games that I played in the afternoon that I actually can't remember what they are, but in the evening, I was super super excited about playing Talisman with the new Nemesis expansion. And the reason for that is I'd invited over the two guys from the Talisman Tavern, which is another YouTube channel, Glenn and Zods. And they'd come over all the way from Norfolk. Well, Zods is north of London. Glenn is over in Norfolk. So, he traveled a long way to come here. And he basically was here and he play they stayed here for two days and we played games with them.

31:36 they uh enjoyed my game of anacrony and Zod was playing games downstairs on Saturday and anyway on the Saturday evening and and the reason why I organized the games weekend is because I got to play Talisman Nemesis. Now many of you will know that I've I'm not going to say fallen in love with Talisman again because it is still Talisman. It is still role to move. It is still roll to resolve, but the fifth edition has fixed a number of issues that I've had with previous editions of Talisman and the game play is a lot smoother and the gameplay is a lot shorter and it's just a it's just a better experience and I've had a lot of great fun playing Talisman fifth edition over the last year or so. And there's a digital version as well which is absolutely fantastic from Nomad Games.

32:22 They've done a really good job at implementing the fifth edition stuff, including porting over some old fourth edition stuff into the fifth edition digital version, which doesn't exist physically. So, yeah, great job no for Nomad Games. But anyway, I was really looking forward to this playthrough because it was Saturday night and it was just going to be fun. And I'll be absolutely honest with you, out of all of those games that I've just talked about that I played in that week off, that game of Talisman Nemesis may have been my favorite one. I'm not saying that the game is the best game that I've played in that week because it's not, but in terms of an enjoyable experience, I had an absolute blast. And it was a combination of a few things.

33:08 It had been an intense six days of gaming and it was all coming to an end and I was kind of just on a high from the fact that, you know, thanks to my amazing support from my patron supporters, I'd taken this week off work. I'd played loads of games. I've live streamed like a crazy person. I was absolutely exhausted and here's the end. This is this is it. The culmination of the week. Uh Glenn and Zod are great people and playing, you know, watching them play Talisman on their YouTube channel is enjoyable because it's entertaining and it's just a lot of fun and I was happy to, you know, have them over and this was me going to be getting to play. So, I was really looking forward to it. I was really excited about that and the game itself played really well. Now, if you're thinking, well, Talisman is just nonsense silly roll and move and that's it. Like I said, there is roll and move still in the game and there is dice for combat, but the nemesis mode is actually a one versus many game. So Glenn was the one.

34:09 He was the nemesis and me and Zods were cooperating together to try and win the scenario by defeating the nemesis. And if you watch that video, you will actually see there are many points where we're rolling a dice and moving around a board. But there are many other points where we're actually discussing how we are going to do this. So there's quite a bit of I mean not as much as voidfall cooperative but there is quite a bit of discussion and decision points about where you want to go and how you're going to do it. Yes, it's still got dice and it's still got those things in it but it was a thoroughly enjoyable playthrough. One of the things that I was a little disappointed about was that most of my regular viewers that have been there through all of the other videos and kept me company and been involved in the chat, there wasn't many people there for the talisman playthrough. And I think it it it taught me something. It basically said to me, I was really excited about it. That doesn't mean that everybody else is going to be excited about it. And I think, you know, in in general, people were not interested in seeing me playing Talisman. And the reason why that was a bit disappointing for me is because for those people that did watch that video and did watch that play through, I'm like, well, surely you saw three people having an absolute blast and not just having fun as in this is a silly game, we're just having fun, but actually properly playing it and really enjoying the game itself. So yeah, that that was

35:40 it. Now, for those people that were there in the chat, thank you very much. You kept us company and and that was great. Uh it it just I I I thought there might have been more people there cuz I was super super excited about it and super looking forward to it. But anyway, that was Talisman Nemesis. That was the last live stream that we did on the Saturday. But that wasn't the last live stream that we did that weekend because in the early hours of the Sunday morning when everybody else had gone home because Lennon's odds were staying over and I was on a high. I went, "Right, I'm going to play every single game in my colle." That's how I felt after that game of Talisman. I was so enthusiastic. I was like, "Right, I want to play all of these games right now." And then the harsh reality hit home that I've had very little sleep for a week. Everybody else has gone home. It's past midnight and I now need to find a game that is not too long that they are going to enjoy that I'm going to enjoy that I remember mostly how to play and I got Heroes of Terino and it ticked most of those boxes apart from the Paul remembers how to play because it turns out 10 minutes into setting up the game and reading through the rules that I didn't remember it at all and we basically had to relearn the game from the rule book which was fine because the rule book for the game is really good and Heroes of Terranoth which is designed by Adam and Brady Sadler and published by Fantasy Flight Games well out of print years ago is a really really good game cooperative fantasy based game. It's effectively the Warhammer Quest adventure card game which was also designed by the Saddle

37:11 Brothers but changed because Fantasy Flight lost the Warhammer license and they put the Terranoth IP onto it which is the Fantasy Flight game world that they put onto it. It's almost the same game, but I actually prefer the Heroes of Terran. The small tweaks to the system that they made with Heroes of Terino. I prefer that to the Warhammer Quest adventure card game. So anyway, that is Heroes of Terran. Now, that's not the the last game that I played that weekend because on the Sunday, we played Agamonia. Now, this is not live streamed because my Agamonia games are split between here and Mark and Sally's house and Vickiy's in them. So, we don't live stream the Agamonia games, but our Agamonia campaign continues and we're still loving it. And I don't really want to go into too much detail about it because I've been talking about this now for over a year. Agamonia fantasy cooperative game campaign based. We've just completed scenario 17. We've just hit level four. It's still great. We're still loving it, but we are only halfway through the campaign. We've still got a long way to go, but it is very, very good. And yeah, we're thoroughly enjoying it. Moving forward to Friday the 12th of December, I got to play Recall. Recall is a game that I was very excited about. It was very high on the Essen Hotness list. It came out at Essen Spielfield 2025 and I got to play it.

38:32 Now, this is one of the new Essen games that I brought back with me that my patron supporters have been voting on the order in which they want to see things and that was next on the list. So, Recall is kind of like a spiritual successor to Revive. I know a lot of people have said it's just like Revive second edition. It's 80% the same. It's not. There are definitely some similarities to Revive. Visually, it does look similar. Yes, you are exploring a board and yes, you have pieces on that board, but the rest of the game for me feels very, very different. I did very much enjoy the game. I also really enjoy Revive, although Revive I think does have an issue. recall from my one player bit doesn't have that issue. But yeah, I really enjoyed the game. And again, this was not a sponsored playthrough. It's on the channel. Go and find it Friday the 12th and we have a full round the table discussion for about 10 minutes after the game. I won't repeat all of that here because A, I don't want to take up 10 minutes of your time when I've already said all of that stuff in another video and b I don't remember anything that I said other than I really enjoyed the game and I thought it played very very well. The rule books rulebook was good and the gameplay was good. I found it interesting. I found the game length to be just right. It feels really tight. It feels really short, but you do actually get a lot accomplished even though you don't feel like you're getting a lot accomplished. And yeah, I I want to play it again. I absolutely want to play it again and I want to play

40:02 through the solo mode cuz yeah, I really enjoyed it. Now, Recall was one of a lot of people's, you know, one of their favorite games of last year and yeah, definitely for me. Now, I preferred it to Revive, as I've mentioned. Where does it compare for me to the other hot games that came out at Essen Spiel? Well, the two ones that I've covered previously, not mentioning all of the ones that I got the chance to cover before Essen, I did Alloy, the astron astronomical clock, and I did was it Covenant? So, Orloy I have now played I think three times. Twi at least twice, maybe three times. Covenant I think I've played three times. If I never got to play either of those games again, I would be okay with that. I enjoyed them both, but I didn't enjoy them enough for me in three months time to go, oh, which of the SN games from last year should I play? whereas Recall definitely is. Now, I have only played it the once, but certainly out of those three games, Recall was definitely my favorite and I definitely want to play it again. I don't know when I'm going to play it again, but I need to fit in a game of that at some point. So, yeah, that was Recall and then in the evening, I got four games of Solar Titans. Now, two of these are on the channel. So, if you're interested in a deck building game, very

41:32 much like Dominion, but where you're actually building spaceships and shooting at each other. Those videos are on the channel now. So, I'm going to talk about Solar Titans now, but I did uh two public videos of it on that day. So, this was Friday the 12th of December. I did the one v one mode where me and Rob were trying to basically blow each other up. And we then did the cooperative mode, which is essentially the same as the solo mode, where you're fighting against an AI, an AI controlled ship. But zoom forward to Friday the 19th of December, I covered Solar Titans again, and this time we did the 2v2 mode where each team of two has control of a capital ship. So there are multiple ways you can play this game. You can play this game one v one. You can play the game with three or four players where everybody's trying to shoot at each other. You can play the game solo. You can play the game cooperatively. You can play the game in two versus two where you're on teams, but each team has their own ship. And you've got the two versus two Titan mode where it's 2v2 team mode, but both of you on a team are in control of one big ship. I So sponsored videos, these were sponsored videos, but I will be honest with you. Sunnyside up Games, the publisher uh of Solar Titans, commissioned me to create one playthrough video for the game. And after I played it, I went, "Whoa, I really like this game." And then I looked at it and went, "Wait a minute.

42:59 This game has a one versus one mode, a two versus two mode, a solo mode." I said, "Look, you're only sponsoring me. You're only commissioning me to create one video for you, but I'm going to do a few. In fact, I'm going to do at least three because I feel that this game is so good. I want to show it off to people and I don't just want to show off one way of playing it. I want to show off multiple ways of playing it. So, all of those videos are on my channel if you are interested in that. I really like the game. It plays really well. It is the core mechanism from Dominion where you've got a hand of cards and you've got to play them. But the genius rule about this game is the fact that you have the the cards which allow you to fire your weapons. You can either play them from your hand to fire a weapon or you can put them into play and prep them, which means you can fire your weapons on a later turn. And the reason why that rule is in there is because you have to fire multiple weapons at the same time in order to get through the person's armor and shields and everything else. If you're just firing one weapon and doing a bit of damage, okay, whatever. And then they fix it. Okay, right.

44:08 But the fact that you can play these cards actually means that the game has a lot of tactical and strategic choices in the game. Do you save the cards until you get a better weapon? And that one versus one game that we played, me and Rob, it's it's like a 20 30 minute game. We played for about 45 minutes because yeah, we were basically playing sort of cat and mouse with not firing the weapons when we could have done and just having little bits of attack and it was so so close. I won't spoil the ending for those of you who get to see it. But yeah, it was really really good game. So yeah, I really enjoy Solar Titans. I think it's a a very good game and I think um those videos haven't performed well. Really really underperformed those videos. Literally a few hundred views on each of those videos which is a bit disappointing. I mean I've done my job.

44:54 I have shown the game off. I think I showed the game off quite well. It's just yeah those obviously people weren't that interested in it. But if you are interested in it, go and check them out because yeah, very good game. Tuesday the 16th, Earthborne Rangers. So, our Earthborne Rangers campaign continues. Again, I won't go into too many details because I speak about it every month. We are continuing to play our campaign of Earthborne Rangers. We only got one play in in December, but we are continuing this year. We'll probably be playing it for about another three or four months, I think, but it will be twice a monthish Tuesday afternoons and yeah, we'll be continuing. I still love the game. I still think it's fantastic. And uh yeah, that's that's about it. I'm I'm still playing Earthborn Rangers and I'm still excited about it. Friday the 19th. So, in addition to the Solar Titans 2v2 game, I got to go back to Windmill Valley. Board and Dice contacted me and they won me wanted me to do a sponsored playthrough video of Windmill Valley with the new expansion which came out at Essen Spiel 2025 which was called Blooming Sales. Blooming Sales. Now, Windmill Valley is one of those games which I played when it came out and I did do a sponsored playthrough video for Board and Dice when it came out, which was a couple of years ago. And I remember demoing it at conventions, and I remember playing it. I think I played it maybe five or six times. And Will Valley was one of those games that I did enjoy playing. I think the board is a bit too big, and the board doesn't need

46:24 to be that big, but but apart from that, yeah, I think I think the game is a good game. I think it's a solid game. It's got some really interesting mechanisms and it plays really nicely. But like a lot of games, it just gets put on the pile and never go back to it. Thankfully, because it's got an expansion, I got the chance to go back to Windmill Valley. And this was a sponsored video, but it reminded me of how much I enjoyed the game. So, I very, very much enjoyed my two plays of Windmill Valley with the new Blooming Sales expansion. Does it improve the game? It adds to the game by saying it improves the game for me. Uh I don't know what I'm trying to say here. I'm not one of those people that jumps on the bandwagon that everybody else seems to do and say, "Right, it improves the game. I will never play the game without it." I would be happily I would be happy to play the base game of Windmill Valley. There's nothing wrong with the base game of Windmill Valley.

47:25 It works well. The expansion works well and I like some of the things. Well, I think I like all of the things in the new expansion, but it's not essential. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't go out and buy it because if you like Windmill Valley, you probably should because it gives you more variety and more options. It's just Yeah, I don't want to be the one to say the base game's rubbish. You need the expansion to make the game. It's not that. It is a good expansion and it it works well, but I would still be happily to still be happy to play the base game of Windmill Valley if the opportunity presented itself. So, that's Windmill Valley. Then, Tuesday the 23rd. Now, this was another Patreon only video and this is Uprising Curse of the Last Emperor. This was my first game of it. Rick came over and he taught me how to play it. And why was it a Patreon only video? That's because later this month, I am going to be doing a sponsored playthrough of Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor. So, because I'm doing a sponsored playthrough this month, I didn't it it doesn't feel right to have a very very rough video on my channel where I clearly don't know the rules of the game and I'm kind of learning it and I'm commenting on it. But, I like to do those videos as extra bonus content for my patron supporters. So, I've done it.

48:42 I've played it and it is as good as everybody says it is. Now, Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor is a cooperative game with a few twists because it looks like it's not a cooperative game, but it is. And one of the twists in the game is that there are actually two enemy factions. There is the emperor who is at the center of the board with big fortifications. And then you've got the curse stuff, all of the bad stuff, the skeletons and all of this stuff that that's coming in. And there are times in the game where the two enemies are actually going to be fighting against each other. Effectively, what you are trying to do is you are trying to score more points than both of the enemies. So, it is a victory point game, but it kind of has the appearance of this is going to be lots of fighting and there is lots of fighting and there is dice for combat, but it works really well. The designers, first-time designers, I believe, and it's their first game and there's a it was a big crowdfunding campaign and there's more content coming for it.

49:45 There's a true solo mode that's coming for it because at the moment the solo mode is you've got to control two factions, but there's a true solo mode coming and it does take up to four players. So, you can actually play a fourplayer game, but it is cooperative. It is a cooperative game and it yeah, I I very much enjoyed that first play and I'm looking forward to playing it more and I will be playing it, as I say, later on later on this month. So, keep an eye out on the channel for that. Christmas. So, for me, Christmas is not a time of um big game playing. My dad came down to stay with us for a couple of weeks. We go to Vickiy's family for Christmas Eve. And Vicki not being a big games player herself, my opportunity to play, you know, really complex board games or even just medium euro uh games are is very limited. So over the Christmas period, the games that I played, which were all really good, were Ingenious 3D. I got to play that with Vicky's family. That was always good. Uh Lacuna, played a couple of games of Lacuna, which is always really nice.

50:47 Played some Sover, played some Just One, played some Teleustrations. This includes New Year's Eve as well where we play some fun party games. The two other games that I played over the Christmas period. One of them was a puzzle style game that was given to me by one of my patron supporters. Thank you, Vary. Uh which is the Morrison's Game Factory. Now, this is my first experience of games from this publisher. But it and we didn't finish it. We think we got about halfway through. It was me, Vicki, and me dad that was playing it one evening. and we want to finish it because the puzzles in it were really good. We really enjoyed it. The story behind it is good. The puzzles are good. There isn't a huge amount of narrative at first before you you start getting into it. There is some narrative later on.

51:33 It's one of these ones that does need access to a computer with an internet connection as well. But yeah, really enjoyed that and I' I'd like me and Vicki to finish it this weekend. That's how much I enjoyed it. And I I I want to finish that game. It says on the box about 3 to four hours, and we played it for about an hour and a half, maybe two hours. So, uh, yeah, Morrison's Game Factory puzzle style game. Very much recommend this if you're interested in that kind of game. The other game that we played with Midad was Storyfold Wildwoods. Now, I've been I've had my eye on this for quite a while now. And there's a lot of other content creators who've got this game and have played it and have said it's great. And this is a solo game, but me and Vicki sometimes play solo games together. So, me, Vicki, and me dad playing a solo game together, it works. Just because it's a solo game doesn't mean you can only play it with one player. It just means you all sit around and you talk to each other about what you want to do. But ultimately it is a solo game. But I've had a lot of fun with it so far. There are I think five chapters included in this game and we are I think two-fifths of the way through chapter one. So we've only just started it, but I like what I see so far and I do want to continue it. Now Vicki enjoyed it, but she said she didn't enjoy it enough that she would prioritize it above some of the other games that we do want to play together.

53:01 So, it looks like I'm going to be playing Storyfold Wildwood Wildwood on my own and whenever I'm playing a solo game, I live stream it. So, I don't have any time in the schedule in January, but hopefully in February, I will be starting to do a playthrough series of this game. And I don't know whether to return to the start because it would be a bit weird sort of jumping in halfway through chapter one for purposes of a live play through. But yeah, um really really enjoyed it. It just it it's quite nice. But what I will say is that when I was the day that I was going to play it, I posted on the Discord server and I said, I'm going to be playing this game later today for the first time. Are there any like rules of or changes or anything like that that I need to be aware of before I start playing it? And I had a message through from somebody who works at OpenL Studios who said, "We're experimenting with two rules changes." And I'm like, "Oh, right. Okay." And I looked at those rules changes before I'd even read the rules of the game. So, they made no sense to me whatsoever. So, then we started playing the game and we played the game for a bit and then at the end of one of the chapters, I said, "Right, I'm now going to look at those rules."

54:18 and we read those rules suggestions and I'm like we definitely want to use those rules. So for those of you that and and this isn't official official yet although it came from an official source. If you know the game then the two rule suggestions that they are putting forward. The first rule is in order to use a crystal to get a success you must already have one success. So, you roll your dice and you've got to get at least one success before you can add crystals for extra successes. The new rule is you can just use crystals for one success. And for me, that makes the game a lot lot better. Makes the game easier, but I don't mind an easy game. If for me, it's about the the experience of playing the game, the story, and everything else. I don't mind a bit of dice rolling and a bit of time pressure, but it did feel a little hard at times. So, that's one rule. And the other rule is that you can lose two of your life force spirit thing to gain a crystal at any time in the game. So, we've not used that one yet.

55:21 We're definitely using the first one, but the second one might make it a little bit too easy. I'm not sure because I think you can get in this situation where you're like, "Okay, I'm rolling my dice. I didn't get any successes. I need a success. I don't have a crystal. Okay, I'll just lose two spirit." I I don't know. I don't know about that one. Um but anyway. Yeah. So yeah, very much enjoyed that. And I think that is all of the games physically that I've played over December. Games played on Board Game Arena, not much. I am getting back into playing games on Board Game Arena, but I have had one game of Galactic Cruise, and one game of Great Western Trail. And I'm currently in another game of Galactic Cruise, another game of Great Western Trail, and a game of Terraforming Mars. So I'm still doing some online gaming. I'm just not doing as much as I'd done previously in the year.

56:10 other content on the channel. Well, I did the live Q&A as I do every month. So, I did a live Q&A in the middle of December. If you want to see that or listen to that as a podcast, that is available. One of the things that I got asked, one of the questions that came up was a question on my religious beliefs. Now, normally I don't go into too much detail about that kind of thing, but I was in the right mood and I was very open and very honest about my uh my beliefs and my religious outlook on life or or lack of. And I just wanted to say a thank you to the people that reached out to me afterwards privately and gave me the opportunity to speak to them about certain things if I felt the need to. I don't feel the need to, but I really do appreciate the people who contacted me and gave me that opportunity. And if you're interested in finding out more detail about my religious beliefs, then yeah, check out the live Q&A from December. I also managed to squeeze in an unboxing video in December, and this was a little bit of an unusual one because I don't normally unbox prototypes, but I was very excited about this game, and I'm going to be talking about this game soon, but this is the Malice of Light Adventures from Adam and Brady Sadler, as I talked about them earlier on today.

57:28 Big fans of theirs. And this is a prototype copy of a game which I'm going to be covering on the channel in January. So, I did an unboxing video of it, even though it was a prototype. And I don't normally unbox prototypes, but yeah, I I I wanted to cover that one. And then the big one of the year, my top 10 games of 2024. Yes, 2024. So, for those of you that don't know, I do my top 10 games of the year after everybody else. Everybody else is doing their top 10 games of 2025 right now. Most people have already done them. I personally don't feel that I am ready to do my top 10 games of 2025 when there are some games that came out in 2025 which I have which I haven't played yet and some of them I've only played once like Recall for example I've only played that once. Uh Fa Swamp not played that yet. Coming of age not played that yet.

58:27 Voinich puzzle not played that yet. There's quite a few games from 2025 which I own and I am going to play and I haven't got round to playing them yet. I don't know how other content creators are able to do their top 10 games of 2025 at the end of 2025. They just play lots more games than me and they manage to get through a lot more games in November and December than I do. And the last year I was actually really hoping to get through by the end of December most of the most of the games, but then November and December went wrong for me in a number of ways and I just I just didn't get around to it at all. So yeah, I do mine later than everybody else, but if you want to find out my top 10 games of 2024, there is a video on my channel from about a week ago in addition to that video for my Patreon supporters.

59:15 So, if you if you are thinking of becoming a patron supporter and you just need one more thing to convince you, then I did a 2 and a half hour video where I basically used the Pub and Mele ranking system to rank all of the games from 2024 that I played against each other in order to come up with that top 10 list. And in that video, which was two and a half hours long, you get a lot of detailed explanation about a lot of the games that I played. Way more information than is in the actual top 10, which to be honest only covers my top 10 games plus one honorable honorable mention. Whereas the the Patreon bonus stream, I talk about all 69 games, which ones were good, which ones were not good, and my personal thoughts on why some of them didn't make my top 10. There's a lot more detail in that video, which is why it's 2 and a half hours long. So, yes, if you are one of my patron supporters, you do have access to that video.

1:00:11 Um, speaking of the uh Patreon supporters, let's talk about some giveaways. So, I've got a couple of giveaways which closed this morning. The first one was a Patreon only giveaway, and this was this one was for a copy of Magnate, the First City, which was donated to me by Naylor Games. The story behind this is that they were sending me a copy of Magnate for the Gridcon raffle. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to arrive in time, so they sent another one. And I said, "Well, what do you want me to do with the first one when it arrives?" And they said, "Just use it for a giveaway or something like that." So, that's what this is. Um, this was a Patreon only giveaway. And the winner, I've decided this morning, I don't decide, I did a random number generator, uh, was Robin Goodall. So, Robin has been a supporter of mine for eight months. Thank you very much for your support, Robin. I will be contacting you later on today.

1:01:04 Thankfully, Robin is in England, so posting it to him is uh reasonable. The other giveaway that I'm doing, and this was this was open to the public, this one. This was for a digital key of My City, and I did a video on My City that might have even been in last month, which I can't remember, but there's a digital version of My City from Spiral Burst Studios. It's a really good digital implementation. It's a really good game. Really enjoy it. And they basically have given me some digital keys to give away. I don't know exactly how many. So, I've picked one winner so far. Uh, and that winner is Kieran Medley, who's been a patron supporter of mine for over three years. So, thank you very much, Kieran, for your support. And this one was open to the public, but patron supporters did get extra tickets if they were to enter. And I will be contacting you, Kieran, about your copy of that. And when I go back to Spiral Burst Studios, I say, "Look, how many keys are you giving me?" It may be just the one, it may be two, it may be three.

1:01:59 I'll do the rest of the draws at some point over the weekend. So, the giveaway for this month is a copy of Aon's End Legacy of Graveold, which is the second Aon's End Legacy game. It's a big box, and this is a Patreon only giveaway. So, to enter this giveaway, you need to watch my bonus video log where I rank all of the games that I've talked about in this video log. So, just just for clarity here, there is this video log that you are watching right now where I talk about all of the games that I've played in the month. But in addition to this video log, I do an extra bonus video log for my patron supporters where I rank all of the games that I've played in December.

1:02:45 and that's the one that contains the details of the giveaway. So, that only goes out to Patreon supporters. Now, right now, I have about 1,250 patron supporters and that message uh for the for the previous month's video log went out to to all of them and only 250 that video only had 250 views. So, only 20% of my patron supporters actually watch those bonus video logs. But if you watch them, great. Thank you very much for watching them. I still want to carry on doing them, but if you want to win a copy of Aon's End Legacy of Graveold, the details of how to enter that contest are in the bonus video log. Hopefully that makes sense. Uh, and good luck. Right, Patreon update. Speaking of the Patreon, December was a fantastic month for the Patreon supporters. Right now, as of the time of me recording this video, we have 1,287 Patreon supporters.

1:03:44 which is phenomenal. It's up on last month by quite a lot. Um, I got a lot of patron supporters in December. On the day where I was live streaming Star Trek Captain's Chair, I think I gained about 18 patron supporters. Now, you know, I I don't know whether it was related to the fact that I was covering Captain's Chair and maybe I should do some more videos for Captain's Chair. I don't know. Um, but yeah, uh, it was there was a big upsurge in patron support. Now, a lot of people have left in December for various reasons, but we did actually manage to reach 1,300 Patreon supporters in December. At one point in December, the number of Patreon supporters that I had was 1300, but we are now at the start of the month, and once Patreon has sorted all of its numbers out from all of the people that have left, right now it's currently 1,287, which is still fantastic. On screen now is a list of all of the new people that have joined since the last video log. So, huge thank you to you for joining up and I hope many of you stay as patron supporters, you know, for for a long time and I hope you enjoy the the content that I create and the extra content. In my last live Q&A, I what was it? I I can't remember what the question was. I think it was, "What's the oldest game that I have in my collection that I haven't played?" And that game is the Freedom in the Galaxy.

1:05:11 There's something something. It's a big long title, but basically this is a game from I think 1979. And I've always wanted to play this game, and it's probably not very good. It's probably very, very dated, but I made a I I basically said, "Right, okay. If we get to 1400 Patreon supporters, I'll do a live playthrough of this game on the channel." I just spurof the- moment thing. But assuming that I'm not going anywhere for the next couple of years, that that is the reality. So, we're calling this the road to freedom because the game's called Freedom in the Galaxy. And the road to freedom is to get to 1400 patron supporters. At the current rate of growth, it will probably be July 2027.

1:05:57 But I don't know. If we have another month that was as good as December, we might get there this year. But anyway, if you want to support me on Patreon, then that is the current goal to get to 1,400 uh Patreon supporters. And if we do, I will do a live playthrough of Freedom in the Galaxy. Um so there you go. That's that's that. Um continuing on from the Patreon thing, just want to say that we haven't decided yet where the charity money is going for December. December for both me and Vicky was a little bit of a mess. A lot of things we've got behind on and one of the things is the charity money. Again, for those of you that don't know, every single penny of advertising revenue from every single one of my videos, not just this video log, every single video that I do, all of the advertising revenue goes to charity. The money will be going to charity. We just haven't decided where. A lot of you have sent through your suggestions. And all we need to do, and we might do it this weekend, all we need to do is sit down, pick one of those charities that has been suggested, find how we donate to them, because sometimes it's not that easy. Uh, and we need to make a donation to them. But if you do have any other suggestions of charities for us to donate to, please drop them through to me. If you are one of my Patreon supporters, then drop me a message on Slack or send me an email or something like that. We're always looking for good charities to support.

1:07:24 And yeah, if you've got any suggestions, please send them through. Okay, so to wrap things up, let's just have a quick look forward into the future and talk about everything that's coming up this month. A lot of this I'm very excited about. Tonight, I'm going to get to play Fya's Swamp, another of the games that I picked up at Essence Spiel 2025. That is getting covered tonight. So, by the time this video goes out, it will have already happened. But that's happening Friday the 2nd of January 2026. a live playthrough of Fya Swamp. I've got Marcus, Kath, and Mark coming over and all three of them are going to teach me together in ac capella style how to play the game. I don't know the game at all, but the three of them together are going to teach me how to play. So, that's going to be happening tonight. On Sunday, I've got Sam and Simon coming over from Drameames, and I'm going to be doing a live playthrough of the Old Ones of Elorado, which is Dra's new Kickstarter game that they've got launching in a few days time by the time you're watching this video. No, no, I think it's going live tomorrow. If this video goes live on Monday, I think their Kickstarter campaign goes live on Tuesday. So, yeah, that's the old ones of El Dorado coming from Drames. Then the Arnac campaign starts. So, starting this month and going to be lasting about 3 months, me and Rick are going to be playing through the cooperative campaign for Lost Ruins of Arnac. I think it's about six episodes and we're going to be doing it once every couple of weeks. I will also be continuing the Earthborne Rangers campaign as I mentioned earlier on. Next Friday, I'm going to be playing

1:08:56 the Voinich puzzle from Danny Garcia, uh, which I'm actually quite nervous about based on what a lot of people have been telling me about the game. I'm expecting to have some issues with it. We will find out. That's happening on the 9th of January. Then on the 16th of January, Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor. I mentioned that it was coming and it's coming. Public playthrough 16th. That is a sponsored playthrough of that, followed by the Friday afterwards, The Malice of Light Adventures, the one that I did the unboxing video for. That's coming on the 23rd of January. So, what's happening with Speak Easy, I hear you ask? Well, speak easy. The how to play video for it. It's all filmed and I'm starting the editing work on Monday. It's probably going to be about two weeks work. So, I'm hoping that by the middle of January, I will have a draft version of the how to play video for Speak Easy, which will be sent through to my Patreon supporters because they help me check it before I do the final edit. So, I'm The aim is to get the video done by the end of the month.

1:09:56 I am still on track for getting it done by the end of the month. I wanted it done a lot earlier, but my deadline was the end of January. So, yes, hopefully there will be a draft version of it by around the middle of January, and then the final version might be a week later. If that happens, and I do find myself with a little bit of time in the last week of January, I will be doing an extra bonus playthrough of something. I don't know what, but with the Lost Runes of Arnac campaign, the Earthborn Rangers campaign, nei neither of them are sponsored. So, in terms of the sponsored work versus the unsponsored work, I think this month is a nice balance. Uprising is sponsored. Malice of Light Adventures is sponsored. The Speak Easy video is paid for. Other than that, FA Swamp is not paid for. Oh, El Dorado is that is a sponsored video.

1:10:46 FA Swamp is not sponsored. The on campaign is not sponsored. Voinich puzzle is not sponsored. So, yeah. And I'm hopefully going to fit in a bit more. But anyway, that's it. That's January. Lots to look forward to. Lots of new games to look forward to, but still some other ones that I need to get played as well. Final thank you again to all of my patron supporters for making these videos possible. This video is not sponsored in any way. I don't get any money from making these videos. All of the advertising revenue goes to charity and I'm only able to do that thanks to the support of my patrons. So, if you want to become a Patreon supporter, patreon.com/gamingrules. You do get access to the Slack community, which is a great community of people. Lots of good discussions on there. And that's it for the month. I will see you next month. Thank you very much for watching. Take care. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.