Ask the Elephant - Q&A - July '26

1:18 What's up y'all? Welcome to today's Ask the Elephant. So, sleeves all jacked up. There we go. Yeah. All right. Happy Friday. Hope everyone's having a good day. Uh just got back from a walk not too long ago with Lincoln. Uh we stopped and got a dirty chai at our favorite little local uh coffee shop. He is currently sleeping right there, chilling. Happy to be in the air conditioning. It's hot outside. It's really hot. Uh So, the impetus for this week's Ask the Elephant um was specifically from one of our viewers, George. Not a patron, but that's okay, George. Uh that asked a he was frustrated and totally understandable and I get it, but I wanted to I wanted to address his his question head on. However, understand that this isn't an attack on George by any stretch. Just he asked the question and I'm going to it's going to be a very long answer. Uh but it's going to be a very thorough answer as to the why of things. All right. So, let me let me go find his exact question. Uh you know what? I don't need to do that. It's okay. George, the gist of it was Let me get the day right. So, back on Tuesday Oh. Back up. Let's try this again. It's

2:48 a good thing I don't talk for a living. I don't have a lot of people available this week. I didn't when I was making the schedule last week. And people the the the the folks that you've come to know and love or hate depending on who they are. Uh they're they all volunteer their time to come and play games on the show. Y'all know this. But life happens. they're unavailable for the most part. So, it was really, really slim picking. So, I was trying to figure out what it is to do for the schedule this week. And one of the things that I've wanted to do for a very, very, very, very long time is I wanted to wanted to learn this game right here, Union versus Central. Okay.

3:36 I was gifted that custom copy of Union Versus Central uh from someone who if I mentioned the name you would all know but I'm I'm they I they've asked me to not say who it's from and I've had it for a number of years and I've there's a mythology around this game. It is a grail game for some it is very hard to come by. It is just [snorts] it's a two-player card game that can take anywhere between six and 16 hours to play. Okay. It's from 1999 and I've been wanting to play it. John, who is the king of the esoteric here at Heavy Cardboard.

4:27 He was he's been down for it because I've mentioned this a number of times. Anyways, the schedule allowed for this. So, I was like, "Hey, John, let's do this." And he's like, "Oh, yeah. Let's do it." So, we're go and we did something different on Tuesday. We did a learn with us. So, it's basically a patrononly stream. It's the type of stream that the patrons normally get when we're learning the game and behind the scenes. Uh, and it was us kind of fumbling our way through the game, making rules, mistakes, messing things up, but learning the game. This is our process. But decided to make it public. And we didn't know if it was a good game, if it was going to suck. We We had no We had uh excitement level nine on a 1 to 10, expectations like a six. blew my expectations out of the water. It is It is a It's Roads and Boats, the card game. It really, really is. All right. Like, they have nothing to do with one another, but logistics wise, it's a logistics card game for two players. We both really, really enjoyed it. And we decided, you know what? We're going to do a a full proper stream of it, uh, shaping up to be August 2nd. So, mark your calendars if that's your thing.

5:40 [snorts]

5:40 um where we still need confirmation from on John's end, but we think that's probably when it's going to be. So, we did this and I said, "Look, I'm going to leave this stream up for a couple of weeks. Um, and then when we do a proper stream, I'm going to take that one down so people don't get confused and whatever." So, George, uh, the gist of You know what? No, I am going to find the actual comment. I decided it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Uh, and I told him I was going to give him credit for this and he's like, I wasn't mean. You're fine, George. I'm not picking on you. It's a valid question that he asked and it's one that I wanted to address. Uh, because I get this question on occasion and I realize I haven't answered it in a while and I wanted to give a really proper thorough answer to the question. So, let me go to the that um Oh, shoot. That is not where I'm trying to go. I'm You would think I would be better at this. You would think.

6:50 Anyway, uh let's see. X out of that. Let me see that. Where are you, George? There it is. Not trying to be a pain in the ass, but what's the mission statement of this channel? If it's to play obscure games that the general public can't get, mission accomplished. I responded said, "I'm going to tackle this question heads on. I'll give you credit." And George came in. Don't get me wrong, I love the content. In fact, a good portion of my 170 game collection has come from watching Heavy Cardboard. So, the value of watching your channel is seeing a playthrough of a game I'm interested in, see if it's for me. That's 100% what it is we're trying to do.

7:39 It's about 90% of what it is we're trying to do. Okay. Um, if it's a game that's super obscure or hard, or impossible to find, there's no value to watch, at least for me. And that part right there is the part I'm not taking umbrage with, but I'm going to point some things out. Okay. So, here is my answer to you, George, and to everybody else out there. Back before Heavy Cardboard was a YouTube channel, we were a podcast. And I started this podcast back in the day with a co-host uh wanting to talk about the types of games that nobody else back then in 2014 was talking about, right? And so, we did that. And I'm going to I'm going to list the handful of games that we talked about on the podcast, okay? And there was a running joke on the on the podcast of, "Oh, wait. The game's out of print. Okay, now we can now we can talk about it. See if any of these ring a bell to any of y'all out there." In no particular order, Wildcats, Three Kingdoms, Redux, Arkrite, Lignum, The Climbers, Age of Steam, Quebec.

8:57 That's that's that's the list that I I I just like in the 30 seconds I I spent looking things up um in there. Why do I bring those up? Well, after we talked about them and or featured them on this channel, they got picked up to get republished. Is it 100% our doing? No. I would argue on Quebec it probably is. Um, but let's go back to Age of Steam. before Eagle Griffin did its big reprint, right? Like way back, we featured um Michael Keller, not Michael Keller, I did it again. I'm sorry, Michael. Uh the zombie Michigan zombie apocalypse map.

9:48 And I had reached out and we had been covering some [snorts] of Ted Alpock's maps as well. And I had reached out to Ted and I had reached out to Michael and say, "Hey, is there any way you can make the files available for folks?" And there became this resurgence, if you will, or surge of interest in Age of Steam. And then Eagle made their big version. Is it entirely because of us? Absolutely not. Um, Michael Webb, thank you. Uh, sorry, Michael Brainford. So, my point is we sometimes feature games that are obscure, uh, like maybe an incorporated or like a Granville or anything like that to highlight it so that it might get picked up and reprinted.

10:46 And since our stream of Union Versus Central, there has been a publisher that reached out directly to me asking, "Hey, can I help put you in contact? Can can you put me in contact because this is a game maybe we might want to do. Um there's going to be an announcement coming at Gen Con for some games that are coming out that we may have had a hand in because we featured them on the channel. So look, we're not the biggest channel. We're not the Dice Tower. We're not, you know, Rodney. We're not any of these really big guys. But I do think for this for this end of the hobby, I think we move the needle.

11:32 And I I feel like that list that I gave off is showing why it is we show really obscure, really hard to get games because like if I were to sell this right now, it'd be like 300, maybe $400 I could get for it. I don't want that. I want to keep this copy, but I also want more copies for y'all to be able to try and play. So, by featuring it, if I can help make that happen in some small way, I think that's a benefit. I'm sorry that this is a good game because you can't get it right now. But I I feel like you're going to be able to get it. It's just going to take some time. So, be patient. So, I hope that answers your question, George, that yes, we feature My job is not to track also what is in print and what is out of print. We feature games that I think y'all might want to see. And sometimes y'all ask for games that are either esoteric and really hard to get or whatever. Um, here soon we're going to be uh we're going to be uh covering Stamps, which is the really really really hard to get uh version of modern art. Maybe it'll get reprinted. That'd be cool. So, I hope that answers your question, George. I want y'all to get access to these games so by featuring them, they don't stay in obscurity. So, I hope that answers. All right.

13:03 Uh yeah. All right. So, now that that's talked about, let's go ahead and hit some of these questions. Yes, Gary. The uh the Golden Elephant Award that was announced at HeavyCon back in May, we'll we'll we'll do a video for it um probably in August for last year. Um everyone's been traveling and they've been like I can't get everybody all in one place at the same time. uh even over Zoom. So, I'm hoping in August we can we can tackle that. Okay. Thoughts on Steam power? I own both brass uh Andrew asked this one. I own both brass games and also have I think that's ticket to ride and on the underground for the lighter side. Yeah, I think so. Have an opportunity to buy steam power retail used locally.

13:57 Thoughts? We did a stream on steam power, didn't we, for the campaign? I think y'all can correct me if I'm wrong. That's the uh Martin Wallace design, right? Um what is it you're looking for specifically on that, Andrew? I think it's a fine game. Uh but but it's certainly given that you have both ends of that. I don't know that you would need that. It's fine. Um I would I would say maybe look into Age of Industry. That might be on the lighter side in between those two. also a Martin Wallace game. Uh, Glimma 2 says, "I don't have a question. I'm just here to say thank you for the great playthroughs and tutorials over the year. Your channel is an incredible resource to learn games from." You're welcome. Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate that. Uh, speaking of which, uh, let's go ahead and talk about last night's stream and then I'll get to John. You know what? On that note, actually, we'll read John's because that kind of ties into last night. John says, "I just want to say I've really been enjoying uh when you GM for bigger games. I love playing with you, but when you GM, it really helps the flow in the presentation of the game, which in turn increases our enjoyment, and you're good at it." I appreciate that, John. So, for a little context as to what John's talking about is you'll notice that there are

15:27 sometimes to where I'm just hosting like I'll teach the game or whatever like what we did for Grrenville the first one and stuff like that and last night's stream of politique for the patrons and stuff like that to where some games I'll play but other games I'll just facilitate GM if you will. Reason I do that is a couple reasons. Number one, helps keep the game moving because because this is a one-man show, uh, producer, director, cameraman, um, one of the players, the person who interacts with chat predominantly, all of that because I wear a lot of hats on stream. uh the uh I slow down the game when I play it because it's hard for me to be solely thinking about my turn when it's my, you know, when it's not my turn because I'm doing all these other things. And so when it gets back to my turn, it's like, okay, now I got to think. So I can be the bottleneck on that. So it helps facilitate the game. Also, there are other times to where it just the flow of it would feel better if I don't play and I just GM. Some people really don't like it when I do that. I understand. I get that. Uh but I think as a production value, [clears throat] I think it it enhances the game. Enhances the production that we present to y'all. Uh when it's called for. I I mean, sure, do

16:58 I miss out on playing a game? Sure. But guess what? I do this for a living, so it's okay. I don't mind. But I I see both sides of it. But if it helps present the game to y'all better, like last night, I wasn't even on camera. I don't need to be. It's my channel. I'm not the star of the show. The star of the show is whatever game we're featuring. That's what's the star. And that's what I think is different than a number of other channels out there is it's not about us. I mean, sure, the guys and gals that are on this channel are really great humans and they have really, really fun and uh personalities and want to hang out with them and all that stuff, but still in the end, the star is what's on the table and that is the key to this channel. So, anything we can do to elevate the platform for that star, then that's what I want to do and that's why I GM some of the time.

17:59 Did I play a video game? No. So, this has become a a sad running joke. Oh, God. All right. My life is not well balanced right now. It consists of three things truly. I run heavy cardboard. That takes up the majority of my time. When I'm not running heavy cardboard, I'm either sleeping or I play poker. And poker is a uh for-profit hobby. Okay. But I've kind of I You do anything too much, you're going to burn out from time to time. Like that's happened on this channel. So, I take a break for a week or two or whatever. And I mean, y'all know this.

18:50 anything that you do uh a lot and you're passionate about whatever, there can be such a thing as too much of a good thing. And I have put in a lot of hours this year playing poker because it's literally my only hobby right now. So, I've been wanting to read a little bit more uh my Kindle. I've wanted to uh go to the gym and I've wanted to play video games, get back into playing video games. I tend to like RPGs, but the problem with that and specifically on the PS5 because I don't have a living room. This is my living room in the studio for those that don't know. Um like this is a permanent studio. I don't have a couch. I don't have the things that a lot of y'all do. Uh my my part of this studio here is on my bed up there.

19:47 I'm not complaining. I'm just this is the way it is and I'm okay with it. But my point is I don't want to play PC uh play video games on PC because if I do, I'm here. I spend enough time in here. I don't want to be here. So I will go sit on my bed and play on my PS5. That's what I want to do. So RPGs on my PS5. The problem with that is how do you pick one? I suffer from executive dysfunction in a number of aspects of my life. That is certainly one where it rears its head. Uh it becomes a game of you know how sometimes the whole what are we going to play tonight game that you have at game night that happens for me when it comes to video games until I get into a video game and so it becomes a game of researching the games and that is the game and that takes up hours and hours and hours and then by then you're tired and you don't want to play the any video and you can't choose one. How do you pick one? So that's the question. Have I played one? No. I asked for input from the herd on Slack and they gave me a lot of great suggestions. The problem is they gave me a lot of great suggest and I so I can be immobilized in overwhelming choice. So I'm struggling with that. So no, I haven't played a video game yet and I'm sad.

21:18 I have the weekend. We'll see what happens. Okay. And hi pasta, I really love your dominant species streams. Any plans to stream dominant species marine? Who was that? Hold on. Let's look who asked that. That was Johan. I don't own dominant species marine. Johan. So that's the bad news. The good news is Jean does. And even though it's GMT and GMT doesn't pay anybody for anything, we're we're going to feature this in a couple of weeks. I had John bring it, so we're ready. So the answer is yes. Thank you, John, everybody. Thank you, John.

22:05 All right. Okay. [sighs] Do I still plan on doing two-player brass Pittsburgh? Yes. Uh, the hollow elite. All right, the hollow. Um, so this one falls on me. This is my fault. So, back when we did the four player road to Pittsburgh, which was a genius idea. Thank you, Martin. Oh, that's good. the fine folks over at Roxley were like, "Hey, why don't you do a two-player patrononly stream of Pittsburgh and I was like, "That is a great idea." And they're like, "We'll help promote it."

22:55 And I'm like, "You guys are great." And try and drive traffic to the Patreon. I'm like, "Thank you. That's fantastic. That's really kind of you." Um, and Kira, who is their marketing director over there, is like, "Hey, I am gonna send out an update every two weeks." And right when I think to send her the link and schedule it for like a week later, the update comes out cuz she sends out updates every other Friday. And I'm like, I missed another one. So, I keep forgetting to schedule it. So, here's how this is going to work. I am hoping to be able to schedule it in the next two weeks and get it into the update that comes out from Roxley about Brass Pittsburgh. So, when I when I time that right, I'm hoping this weekend because she's not putting out another update until next Friday. I have I I'm remembering this. So, that's my fault. I keep screwing that up, the timing of that. So, I apologize, but yes, that's coming. It's gonna be a patron only.

24:07 Speaking of which, talk about last night's stream. So, uh last night we did something different. Uh we did something very different, I would argue. Hold on. Let me mark this spot. Give me a second. There we go. All right. Cool. Uh that'll work. So last night we did a patronon sponsored stream of politique. You might be asking yourself, self, why would you make that patronon? Well, we wanted to work with the fine folks over at Black Yeti who are putting up Politique. It's currently on Gamefound. So here's how this worked. They were sending emails to me at the wrong email address. I wasn't getting them because that email address doesn't work anymore.

25:00 Finally, we connected, but we connected during the campaign at the during the first couple days of the campaign. So, the campaign's already started. Every publisher has a marketing budget which for whatever game. Well, okay. Most publishers, hi GMT. Uh, most publishers have a marketing budget. And so once the campaign has started, they've already allocated their budget wherever it needs to go. Well, because we didn't connect through nobody's fault, just a miscommunication that happens, uh, most of their budget had been used up. So, we charge X amount. And so, when we connected, because it's marketing, because it's promotion for them, uh, to help make them money for their game found or Kickstarter or or upcoming release or just, uh, just published released, whatever the case may be, that's a marketing expense. So, we worked with them on it and they were like, "We can't afford that." Um, I said, "Okay, what is it you're looking for? What can you afford?" And they came back with a number and I was like, "Oh, okay. Let's be creative. How can we do this?" So, I reached out to a couple of folks I trust and hey, do you guys have any ideas? What can we do? And one of those ideas was, "What about doing a patronon sponsored stream?" Hm.

26:30 Okay, that's something I'd never even considered. Okay, so I floated the idea and they were like, "Yeah, let's do it." Because why do that, right? And why not make it public? Well, okay, let's let's dive into this. When a publisher reaches out to a content creator, whether it's Heavy Cardboard, whether it's The Dice Tower, whether it's whomever, um, lost my train of thought. Shoot. Give me a second. Uh, oh no, I have completely lost the plot. That sucks. Let me stall.

27:19 Right. That's it. Got it. When anybody that does sponsored content, whether it's Veritasium, whether it's it doesn't matter, right? Anybody that does the advertiser, be it the publisher usually in this case, right? They're renting your audience. that you have cultivated over some amount of time. Yes, they are hiring us to show off their game, but really what they're doing is they're renting y'all. That's just the God's honest truth of it, right? And so by having coming in at a lower number, I'm you don't want to devalue yourself, but you you want to work with publishers if they have a game that you think is, you know, worthy of working with, right? And that was the case.

28:17 There were a lot of patrons that asked for this and I was like, okay, how can we make this work? So by putting it on the Patreon, it it does two things. one, it gets them in front of the core audience for heavy cardboard, which that's a win. That's pretty good. Um, but also doesn't devalue what it is that we do for and also doesn't disrespect other publishers when they char when they pay the full monty for what it is we do. So, that's just marketing and business side of it, right? So whether it's us or whether it's whoever does the sponsor content and so we decided okay let's try this and they were like hey yeah okay we're cool with that now it comes with a level of trust and a level of respect between everybody involved because in the end if it's not hosted directly on Patreon then it's just a link and if that link gets spread it's out there so there's that.

29:22 And so there's a fear on my end. Is it an unfounded fear? Is it a solution in search of a problem? Possibly that it's if you're a patron, the like there's no reason for you to share it. You could theoretically somebody could come in, pay the five bucks to get access to the channel, get the link, and then go paste it somewhere over on a Discord somewhere or whatever. They could. And if it's a risk. So what me as the content creator, what do we do to limit that is we only make it available for a certain amount of time. However, on the negative side of that, what that does is that now alienates the people that you're actually trying to support in the patrons. It's a benefit for being a patron is you get this extra bonus stuff. That's awesome. But if you do it for a limited time, then when this game is available publicly for their copies, whether they backed it on the game found or whether they buy it retail, that video has gone away and now they don't have access to it. Correct. That is true. Um, so it's it's a fine line.

30:32 why take it down if it's behind the pay wall [snorts] is inevitably that that link is going to get out there and so I just don't want to deal with that headache and it shouldn't be out there because it wasn't ever designed to be out there so that's why does that make sense um so hopefully hopefully that gives a little bit of context and hopefully the I extended the amount of time so I extended it through Monday so people have 5 days to be able to watch that video. That seems reasonable. 4 days, whatever it is. Um, so yeah, we'll we'll see how this goes. Um, now depending on how their campaign does, it could be that the publisher says, "Hey, we want to go ahead and do a public stream with a proper teaching da da da on another stream months down the road ahead of the main release."

31:27 Awesome. That that seems reasonable. that might they might not want to and that's okay too. I'm not asking them to pay twice. I I just tried to come up with something creative to work within their budget but also um does what they ask but also serves the core audience which is the patrons. Now to be fair we put out a ton of free content for all the non-patrons. So I feel totally fine with it. I have zero issues with that um because it's just bonus content. this wouldn't have been made otherwise. So, yeah, it it it feels like a win-win. I just wish that limitation wasn't didn't have to be there. And maybe maybe that's something we can revisit down the road, but as of right now, I'm okay with that decision.

32:13 All right. All right. So, with that said, let's go ahead and get back to questions. Uh Frostation asks, "Hello, Edward." Hello, Frostation. still planning on playing the other two great western trail games. Uh he he says note or they say uh note don't bother with El Paso. What's the issue with El Paso? Let's talk about that. I don't know. I I I have zero knowledge about it. So learn me. Um yes, we are planning on again it's summer and so people are taking trips and and whatever. So um the the availability of of people uh on given nights goes down. So, it's a little bit thinner during the the heart of summer here. Um, but yes, to answer your question, I don't have a time frame on when, but yes, the plan is still to revisit or no, not to revisit, to visit uh the the other Great Western Trail games. Sure.

33:17 Chris says, "Excited to see all the new Worly Gig associated games, Infamous Traffic, Second Edition, and Hellraisers." So, I'm pretty sure Hellraiser has been delayed because of infamous traffic and because of the whole berry giant thing and all that, but yes, when I was at Circle DC, met up and hung out with Cole and Drew and got a chance to play the second edition of Infamous Traffic and [snorts] we basically informally but formally if you will uh discussed, yeah, we are going to be covering all their games going forward. Be it Oath, be it uh uh Infamous Traffic, be it Hellraisers, be it everything that Barry Giant and Whirly Gig are going to do. We're going to be working with them on it. So, rest assured you will see it on the channel.

34:13 That's last we heard. I feel pretty confident about that. Also, on that note, um they are going to be at Gen Con. I am not I I avoid Gen Con. I do not like attending Gen Con in any way, shape, or form. And but I will say they are going to be there. They're teaming up with Pablo and I can't remember Pablo uh the other folks that are making the trip uh from Oh, it keep it it keeps bouncing in my head. The Old Prince. That's wrong. Um help me out. Uh, oh my god. Anyway, they're sharing a booth with the Barry Giant and Whley gig folks. Check them out when you go to when you go to Gen Con. If you're going to Gen Con boy, my memory today. Wow.

35:10 All right. So, let's see what Alexander asks. Have you played Perseverance? We streamed the first two, I think, way back in the day during the campaign, and any plans to run uh episodes three and four. No plans directly right now. Uh, but I I possibly oddity. I still dream of the day you cover Spirit Island, but I would take some cool whirly games like Pax Premiere or John Company. I mean, we've covered all that. We haven't done Spirit Island. We could do a co-op uh or I'm sorry, a tag team solo of Spirit Island. That could still happen. I forget whose copy.

36:00 I don't know if it was John, Paul, or Derek, but it's here. We could do that. Just saying. Andrea says, "I like the little known obscure. I bought packs after watching you and Kyle play it. It's been a hit with my friends." That's [snorts] a win. I'm glad to hear it. Not that you bought it because of us, but that it was a hit with you and your friends. Irish death 66. Are there 50 65 other Irish deaths before you? Just curious. Asking for a friend. Just wanted to say thanks for your playthrough of The Hunters from GMT. Just got into war gaming due to watching your playthrough of that game and it was my very first game last month. Thanks. You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed that. If you enjoy solos, you got to check out Mr. President. You really do. It is magical fixing. I'm sitting.

37:05 There we go. Microphone cords. Here we go. All right. Uh, any plans to revisit brand new reprint or came back? Duh. Yeah. I'm surprised we haven't heard from Ulie about it to be honest. A little disappointed newly, but I'm going to reach out to him. Yes. Hoenstein. So little tiny story. Uh I had shown I had made it like my like a little mission to try and get Hinkenstein reprinted. I brought it to Clay over at Capstone. This is years ago. And I showed it to him and he was like, "Okay, this is amazing. I want to see." And unfortunately, the costs for producing the game weren't viable according to Clay because you have to manufacture the stones and yeah, so it was close. He did investigate it, but unfortunately, no.

38:12 Sorry. uh time agent. I don't know that I have Derek. Let's look that up real quick

38:34 if it's the one I'm thinking. Oh, yeah. No. Um I It's funny. This got brought up somewhere recently. I forget where I saw it, but anyway, uh, somebody mentioned there's an app that or like an online helper for this game specifically, but no, not on the short list of games.

39:02 Keyside maybe. Um, I love Richard Breeze. Love Key Market. Reef Encounter, one of the greatest games, but maybe on King Keyside.

39:30 Fernando says, "I can say I like you DMing, but honestly, I miss watching and following them from your PL uh uh perspective. Helps me with bigger games. I get that. But again, we're we're I feel like there's a good balance right now. I'm I'm I'm pretty happy with how that's working. Uh E asks, "Any plans to revisit the group herd top 50? Maybe with some others." Um I don't think that's going to be an annual thing. That might be every couple years, but yes, we will do that periodically. Um but no no plans on the immediate horizon to do that anytime soon. Okay. And Shay mentions that Martin uh the Elder really likes steam power. That's true. Yes.

40:20 The other side of the hill that that got brought up recently within our circle as well. That is one that we will we will revisit and finally get back to the table. Yes. Evan says, "Just caught your Cretaceous Rails video the other day. Not sure how I missed it before if you subscribe." I'm just saying, Evan, thanks for featuring it. And Journey, the designer, is a friend of mine. She has a few other great designs, too. Well, great. Hopefully Ann has seen it. I hope she enjoyed our playthrough of it. If so,

41:07 noted. Shay, I see you. Great. adding more games onto the games to research list. [clears throat]

41:33 Oh, hey Tony. Tony Boydell in the house. We now have the Francis Trem legacy materials in the Museum of Board Games. any chance you'll be coming to the UK to see it? I'll tell you what, tentative. Now, here's the deal. I'm going to answer your question in a roundabout way, Tony. Here's the deal. I really want to go to Essen this year, but I I was late in trying to lock down any kind because I wasn't sure if I was going to go. I would like to go. I don't have a place to sleep. If if if I can find a bed at Essen then I could always come to the UK first and do that and before and do that as part of the trip. So I just need a place to stay during Essen. I'll pay for it. I just so yeah maybe I would love to. I mean, I So, since Tony brought this up, so my interview with Francis Trasham, how that came about, that was a multi-person facilitation. Uh, Richard, I think Tony had a hand in that as well. Um, we were going to the UK Games Expo, Jess and I, way back in the day, pre-COVID days. And I had trying to do some research on Francis Tresham and look up interviews on him and because he is the grandfather

43:04 of Civ, he is the grandfather of 18xx like without like Francis Tresham's got to be on the the Mount Rushmore of board game designers in my opinion. I mean the tech tree is because of Francis Strash. So when I was doing research, the only thing I found was some mid90s written interview with Francis Trem. And I was like, you know what? If I'm going to UK, I want to see if I can interview Francis because he was getting up there in age and I knew he didn't have a whole lot of birthdays left in front of him and I wanted to sit down and try and get for posterity. Honestly, I took it upon myself. on behalf of the board game world to try and get something on tape with this guy and through efforts of other people they were able to make it happen. So Richard brought us uh to Francis's house, him and his lovely lovely wife. I had spent hours preparing these questions and Francis decided to take the interview in any damn direction he wanted. And I was internally dying cuz I f I had had put so much pressure on myself to like for posterity's sake

44:37 needed to ask these questions and get answers to them. And I thought it was so important. And looking back on it, the interview is hysterical now. It's awesome. It's so much fun. But in the moment, I'm dying. Oh my god. I was just falling apart like, "Oh, this is not this is going so bad." So, rest in peace, Francis. H that was that was definitely one of the highlights of my life was being able to do that. That was really I'm very grateful for him and his wife inviting Jess and I into their home and sitting down for that. That was amazing. So the fact that that's now u a part of the Museum of Board Games over in the UK, I think that's amazing. That's awesome. So very cool.

45:31 Uh Clinic Deluxe. Uh, possibly Cool Blue could be gathering of chums in November. I mean, we could see if we can make this happen. Flights are expensive, but we'll see if we can make it happen. Tony, I'd be down for that. Good evening, everybody. Bunch of people chiming in here. Have I heard of wireless? They say it's from the same designer uh duo Zango wireless. No. Anybody got anything on that one? Let's look it up real quick. Race to build the world's first wireless networks, patents and all that.

46:20 All right. Steel fiber is the publisher on this one. H looks very euroy. That's not necessarily a negative. Looks like a a a smaller one. 30 to 120 minute play time. I mean, again, this is why I want to go to Essen to meet up with publishers for these things. Uh, we planning on doing a stream for Oath New Foundations. The the Yes, that thick ginger. That is a fantastic handle. Love that. Uh yeah, we we should be working with everybody involved on that. Yeah.

47:12 And yes, as I mentioned, Infamous Traffic, second edition. Yes. Oh, King's Crown. Thank you. That was I you I realize Hop on board. Chris answered this like an hour ago, but thank you. Yes. Oh. Okay, this is a good question, Spang. Thank you. Uh, interesting that you're not into Gen Con, but you want to go to Essence Spiel. What's the difference for you? Significant. Um, all right. So, those are the two biggest board game. One is board game centric, one is not. Let's start there. Essen spiel in Germany is [snorts] it's a huge huge place to buy board games.

48:06 If you're me, it is the place to meet with publishers and designers and such. All right, so that is the big deal for me. Gen Con is spread out massively and it is it has a fairly big uh board game contingent, but it has a whole lot of stuff that ain't board games and it is just so spread out and so massive. And ironically, Essen doesn't feel, even though it's as busy, it doesn't feel as chicken with a head cut off when trying to meet with publishers and everything as Gen Con is. Gen Con, at least it was when I was still going to Gen Con and Essen and all that stuff.

49:05 Gen Con seemed to be the convention that most people in the industry dislike the most. Um, and they are absolutely utterly you're exhausted afterwards, especially on the publisher side. And while Essen is still that, it's just a step down. It is just a little bit, it can still be a little bit more you can have a conversation whereas Gen Con it feels like bing bing bing bing and it's just and it's not board game ccentric and plus the types of games that we feature tend to be more it's not a hard fast there are still some things that get released at Gen Con that fall within our purview but Essen is more that scene um so yeah that's that's the big difference but Uh, Gen Con? No. No.

50:03 Any new games you're looking forward to getting to the table? John asks. I mean, [sighs] I'm sure there are, but nothing off the top of my head, which I know that sounds not great. Like, I have prototypes that we're doing stuff for here. um like we have Whisperwood and there are a couple others that are hiding over there um that we're going to be doing. Um but like I'm looking forward to the resort, but that's a ways off still. Um but yeah, just there isn't anything I I tend to because the availability of people fluctuates so much here on the channel, it tends to be a week-by- week thing.

50:54 Now, there are we we do make plans further out for sponsored content, but I don't do any plans out past the week for non-sponsored things. um unless it's like a big ticket item 1817 I really want to have that done by the first week in September. So that is something that like okay we're working towards that but outside of like a big ticket item like that like a a here I stand or a high frontier or something like that that is a okay what are we going to play next week type thing that's that's pretty much where we limit it unless it's sponsored or a really really big game like that. Okay. Um, will I come to Shield this year? I got to find a place to stay. Uh, I have struck out with every I I've exhausted the resources I have on my end. So, if anybody out there knows of somebody that has an extra bed or a room in an Airbnb that they're looking for, you know, somebody to stay there with, let me know. That is going to dictate. And I I like if I if I can't figure this out in the next week to 10 days, probably not.

52:07 And that's going to be a huge bummer because I really was planning on going this year. Um, and if you go to Shiel, am I going to do a meetup? One thing at a time, but we'll see. But one thing at a time. How goes the recovering of the old podcast? Um, it it hasn't it's it's there have been two people that have helped me on this. Um, I'm not ready to say anything else about the podcast other than that, but we are trying to recover the old ones and then we will talk about that in the future. Ask the elephant merch soon. Yes, there will be merch available both with the older original OG logo and newer stuff as well. But yes, that will be uh by the end of the summer. Yes.

53:07 Automobile stream. It's not on. I mean, we've done it a bunch now. Now that we're doing everything in 4K here, uh I would like to do like does it need to be in 4K? No. But does that give me an excuse to reream a Hall of Fame game like Automobile? Yes. Is it on the docket for anytime immediate? No. Could it happen though? Yes. I have not played Revenant. Have you, Lord Dober? And what are your thoughts on it?

53:43 [snorts] A, that's very nice. Aragle says, "Hi." Hi. Uh, I love your content. Everyone says I'm good at teaching, but that's because of you. I know your agenda is full, but if I buy you a game, I want to see you all play it. How long would I have to wait? Well, that was very kind. Um, it's all about structuring the way you teach a game, right? Start big, work your way to the granular. So, if I've helped teach you or the process of teaching a game, then great. I am happy to have helped. Um, honestly, part of it is intuitive to me and my inspiration, the one who I give uh my credit to is Scott Nicholson. The way he structures his teaches, plus he's just a great human being. Um, that's that's who I would So, back in the day, Board Games with Scott, that was that's that was my kind of that's who I I guess was inspired by the most.

54:44 So, I'm happy to continue that on. That's very flattering. I appreciate that. Um, Argyle asks, "If if I buy you a game and I want to see you all play it, how long would I have to wait?" It doesn't quite exactly work that way. Um, I appreciate the sentiment. Let me let me say that we we are we are thinking of ways to make this a thing that people can contribute to possibly work on. So stay tuned and in future ask the elephants we will we will present when we are ready to do so a way to make that happen. Okay, I appreciate it.

55:30 Uh pat monthly patron vote. Yes. Yeah. I I thought of you when I mentioned here I stand, Seth. And hi, Yakob. Hi, Frontier. I saw you guys in here. [snorts]

56:08 Uh, Cool Blue says, "I purchased uh, Doubt is our product because of y'all. Can't wait to play it with friends and family." Uh, [snorts] Tigers in Euphrates stream. I mean, I know that uh, I know Ken is a big fan of that. That is something that could happen for sure. Um, oh, another one that I want to mention. So, uh, JT, I see you by the way. Thank you. Um, it was mentioned over on the Coast. So, Coast Watchers has been the game that I has been my most anticipated game for a while now, now that Grineville is out, but Coast Watchers for a number of years, at least two years, I've been waiting on this game since I first played it.

56:57 [snorts]

56:57 It's from Vocal Room Key and GMT. And I don't know if y'all know this, but Coast Watchers is delivering. You know it either because you're following it or you ordered a copy, but that's it. Otherwise, you would never know. And I've made the the it's surprise. Nope. Wrong wrong wrong term. Let me let me try and go about this. I am surprised. Nope, wrong word.

57:36 Let's take this a different way. Somebody mentioned in the Cohost Watchers thread uh forum over on BGG they would love to see a playthrough of G Coast Watchers on uh on the channel here. I would love to do a stream of coast watchers on the here, but I would like to also reference what I just said about an hour ago or so about sponsored content and how marketing works. So, uh, Vulco, uh, chimed in on that thread, uh, saying, "Oh, I know Edward's a big fan." Because Vulco and I know each other. And, um, um, and I I I chimed in and said, "Yes, I am I am both a fan of Vulco as well a fan of a number of his games." Um, I would love to have GMT sponsor a stream and bring Vulco up from the DC area to Boston and have Vulco in studio and we could do a playthrough of Coast Watchers.

58:55 His response is, "Ooh, I like that idea very much. Let's talk and see if we can make something happen like that." Let's hope, cuz help me help you. I would love to do that. That would be amazing. That would be a win, I think, for the community at large. That would be really I mean, it would help Heavy Cardboard. It would help Voco. It would help GMT. It would help y'all. It's a win. So, let's hope we can make that happen. That would be great. Uh, so with that said, Chris, kind of you were talking about being a Marine and all that. I would love to do that. Uh, another oath stream before the expansion maybe. I don't know. We'll see. It's all about availability of people.

59:48 So, yeah, I've caught up 100%. Gary uh Gary says, "If you win against Vulco in Coast Watchers, is it going to be like Mark Herman all over where you refuse to play the game?" I am retired from Churchill. I can never play Churchill again because I won a game of Churchill against Mark Herman and Jess. I'm retired. That's it. Game over. Done. So, although I think what will probably happen in this case is Vulco will probably GM the game and it'll be me and it might be a 2v2 type thing with Vulco GMing. It'll be an all day thing. Like I I I already know how it will work. Just need to make it happen. That would be awesome. I would love that.

1:00:41 Uh Stefan asks, "Hey Edward, as a Lucerta fan, do you have any insidef info on the new Lucerna game, The Resort?" I mean, while I'm tight with everybody involved. Um, no. You I I feel pretty confident that I might be able to talk some more post Gen Con about it. So, let's leave it at that. Okay.

1:01:13 Uh, Lord Dober says, "I haven't played Revenant yet. Looks cool. I'm new to board gaming. I've only played Nemesis Arcs in Old King's Crown." That's a fun start to the hobby. Man. All right, everybody watching. Greg, if you're watching, the one Lord Dober is new to the hobby. Welcome to the hobby. Hopefully you're enjoying it. The games he's played are Nemesis Arcs and Old King's Crown. One game that he should play. Go. Lord Dober, get a pen. Piece of paper. Get ready. Uh, Congress of Vienna instead of Churchill then. Uh, yeah, that that that could happen. Yeah. Yeah.

1:02:12 Oh. So, what are y'all guys's plans? What are what are y'all's plans for this weekend? Any gaming plan? We're talking about maybe having a game day tomorrow. We'll see. Um, I'm curious to see when you can only come up with one game to recommend what it's going to be for everybody out there. I mean, for me, I I'd say Age of Steam. That seems like the obvious one. Um, so 1817 on the docket soonish. Dominant species marine on the docket probably in a couple of weeks. This bad boy August 2nd tentatively planned. Um, Whisperwood is supposed to be I think August 13th I believe.

1:03:03 Uh, my immediate plans are to spend an hour or two cleaning up politique from last night. It's still all over here on the table. There's a lot. And I need to send a couple of emails. Um, and maybe figure out a video game, figure out the food situation as well. I I need to eat something. But that's about it.

1:03:52 A lot of good suggestions here. All right. I like them. Uh Iban Ashim says, "The dominant species playthrough was fun." Apparently not everybody liked it, but I thought it was a lot of fun. Um, but yeah, that that that kind of that kind of Yeah, I I thought it was a good time. Jackie says they just noted. Drive safe, Jackie. Uh, if Mark challenges me to a rematch. He won't. What? Mark. So, it's possible that we have Mark Herman in studio because he has a house on the Cape. Might be able to have bring him up here and have him do a teaching game of Empire of the Sun. Is there any interest whatsoever of that having Mark Mark Herman in studio teaching y'all and me Empire of the Sun and that dude that dude has some stories. It's a lot of fun to sit and hang out with Mark. It's a lot of fun.

1:04:57 A camping and cribage. That sounds great. pasta. Oh, funny you mentioned that, Seth. Uh, you should play Captain's Chair. Uh, start. Well, good news on that. Uh, I've been in contact with Whiz Kids. Uh, we're we're we're we're going to be covering uh the base game and it sounds like the expansions for Captain's Chair. I am super stoked about that. I have no affinity for Star Trek or Star Wars for that matter. Different animals, I understand. Don't don't yell at me. I'm just saying it. Or Lord of the Rings. Um, but I've heard it's a really great solo game.

1:05:44 Really great. So, I'm really excited to tackle that one a lot. So y'all y'all y'all have y'all are ambitious. If I'm going to take the man away from his summer home, I'm probably not going to do it for a week so I can do all these game. Empire, if we get one, be happy with that. Y'ALL ARE ROUGH. [snorts]

1:06:38 THAT WAS KIND OF A loaded question about the whole empire of the son of Mark Herman, but our he and I have talked about it numerous times, so I'll see if I can make that happen. Um that that would be a lot of fun. I would love to have him here in studio for that cuz it's it's about a 90minute trip from the Cape there thereabouts. There depending on traffic to be fair it could be like seven hours the there's one way in on and off the gate. It can be H. So anyway, yeah, just because he's retired doesn't mean he wants to come up and do I hear you, Yaka. So anyway, there that's the right answer. Actually, anything Mark wants to play. That's fair. That's that's probably the right answer, but it would be Empire of the Sun.

1:07:35 [snorts] All right, cool. Well, I think that's where we leave it. I think I think we're good. uh combat line of games. Nothing planned on that.

1:07:56 But I I feel like war games his historically kind of get a little bit not short shrift. It's just there are because they tend to require more involved planning to organize. They're they're rarer than a standard euro, but yeah, you're going to see some for sure. And again, working on coast watchers. We'll see what happens with that. All right. Fernando says, "Can I say something off topic?" Um, and he already did, so I guess the answer is yes. No, you're fine. Uh, after all the stress of the move, you seem to be in a stellar mood and health. Love to see it. It's I mean, we're not at 100%, I'll be honest, cuz like life happens, but I appreciate that. I I'm certainly where the show is feels really good. That's in a much healthier spot um in all the ways. So I am grateful to all the patrons that choose to support the show and I'm grateful for the friends that I have that want to be a part of this thing and grateful to all the rest of y'all that choose to watch this. Um obviously it's symbiotic, right? It helps me continue to do what I love full-time, which is this channel, but it also provides y'all with a

1:09:26 resource for when you want to play these games that uh a lot of people seem to be using. So, I am grateful for that opportunity. So, thank you. Mike says, "No question. Just wanted to say I discovered your channel through the new company, I'm sorry, the John company second edition playthrough with Cole. I've since watched every Power Grid video you've made. There have been some really good ones, haven't there? Uh Power Grid continues to just be stellar. It it it really is. And honestly, I just kind of want to play the Germany map repeatedly just to be able to show folks that even though there are other maps and I w I support and think the other maps have viability like that they're they're they're different and they're good, but you can have an amazing experience over and over and over and over with the same map in that game. It is so good. Yeah, Power Grid and Aegis theme in that regard are just magical for systems.

1:10:38 They really are good. I'm glad you're enjoying that so much though. Just picked up a copy of the original version of Village. Watch your playthrough from a while back. Just wanted to say that your teach was super helpful. Awesome. I'm glad. That's that's a game that did the timing mechanis like the the passage of time really well, didn't it? Speaking of which, cannot wait for Providence. Cannot wait. Very excited about that. I see you, Cushigra. What about a series of war games where you go over one game of each type, a tactical, strategic, operational, and then go coin and ICS to show uh all types of war games exist? Uh because surface level, they all look the same.

1:11:25 That's something that's something that I I feel like there are channels that are better equipped to do that. But that is something that I would at least entertain the idea of doing. Um I mean everything from block war games to Hex Encounter to to CDGs to like I see what you're saying. I think that's actually a really interesting series that that that's doable. I could see that. Yeah, I like that. That's a good good suggestion. All right, so I'm just curious. Yeah, we still All right, we're good.

1:12:13 Uh yeah, so I need to clean all this up. I need to send some emails. I got to figure out a video game. And then I don't know. So it's funny. Um, I told you I'm kind of vacasillating on the whole burnout thing uh of poker. I still really enjoy it. I still love it. It's never going to go away. It's just taking a break from it. But yet, it's Friday and I'm like, "Oh, the games are going to be good. I feel like I'm supposed to go play poker tonight. I don't know. We'll play it by ear. We'll see." [sighs] Good to know, John. Thank you. Um, seriously so excited for this. Really excited for this.

1:12:58 And I'm hoping that we can get it reprinted from somebody cuz shouldn't take a lot. I know royalties and all of that stuff, but componentwise it's really not that much. So, all right. That's where we're going to wrap it up. I will be back next week. I don't know what days yet. I will know on Sunday. Uh but yeah, I've enjoyed this. Thank you everybody for watching. Hopefully hopefully you got something out of this as well. And if nothing else, hopefully I helped shorten your workday by a little bit, however long it is that we've been going on. I appreciate that. What What have we done? This is a pretty short one. This what hour 15? Yeah. All right.

1:13:44 Cool. All right. Hopefully we can solve this video game situation. Not asking for much. Thanks everybody for watching. Like, subscribe, all that fun stuff. Consider the Patreon. You get access to a bunch of bon bonus content as well as the Slack channel. Uh yeah, I'll see you all next week with more streams of hopefully good games. All right, take care everybody. Thanks. Bye.

1:14:22 Hey,