Filming The Gencon Games - The Weekly Vlog

0:00 Hey, I'm Alex W from Board Game Co. and we are starting with the next week of the postgen con vlog. This time we're focusing on filming the games. So, uh, a bunch of things to get into. Number one, a regular shout out to All Play, our channel sponsor. You can see them in the shelves behind you over here. Full shelf review coming shortly. Uh, number two, as far as projects I'm going to be giving myself this week, this is all catch up to the past vlogs if you haven't been following. Uh, but first of all, I'm going to give myself the uh goal of this week I want to film the All Play Shelf review, which just means I've had them for months now, eight months now, seven months now, whatever it's been. Eight months, I guess. Wow. Uh, I need to go ahead and just jot down the notes and the experiences. I already have them in my head. I just need to jot them all down and then walk around showing you uh showing you uh the the the general review of the shelves. So, we'll get that as one of the things I'm trying to do. Uh, number two, uh, I will be doing some lawn maintenance. That's something I've been pushing off for a while and I have to because I just got my uh, inspection report. or the say regular like the city around here, I don't know where you live, the city where I am, they do this thing where um every few years they walk around and be like, "Here's all these 17,000 things you need to fix about your property and you have 30 days to do it or else." And uh I hate that. It's not fun at all. Uh but it is something I will go ahead and do. Some of these are things I wanted to do anyway. Others are things that I don't care about. I don't care about.

1:13 But, you know, they're maintenance code issues and uh I will go ahead and have to deal with that. So, over the next few weeks, this is going to be my project cuz I have Also, it didn't help that I I I this was delivered while I was at Gen Con. I happen to have not checked my mail since Gen Con, so I checked my mail. Uh, which means now I only have two weeks left to get this done. I'm going to call and ask for an extension. We'll see how that goes. But, I do need to make some progress. Usually, they're better about uh giving extensions if you've made any meaningful progress. So, I'm going to do that and then um then talk to them. Anyways, that's kind of the projects I have on my plate. Outside of that, we're going to be focusing this week on playing, not playing, filming some of the Gen Con games that I came back with. So, right now, uh, we've done a week of learning games. We did a week of playing games, and we're doing a week of filming, keeping in mind that I'm doing all of these things all the time. It's just that what is my focus for each week. And so, today, today, we're going to try to set a goal. I'm going to try to do two videos today. two, meaning two vlog segments today because we have our starting here are the goals I have and then maybe I'll wrap up at the end of the day if I've achieved them because I'm going to try to film three videos today if I can. I'm going to try to film a video for Reef and Runes. It's a small little uh roll and right game. It's a roll and right game. Fun little game.

2:18 I'll be covering that doing a video. I want to do a video for Cano from Mato. It's a light game of uh trying to place polyominos by gathering various paints in a kind of jeweled style thing. Very charming. I'll talk more about it in my thoughts. And then what's the other one I want to do? I want to do another one, but where's my list? Give me a second. I wanted to do that one. I'm not ready for that one. I'm not ready for um I'm ready. Oh. Oh, do I want to do that one yet? No, not yet. I had another one. Cano, I'm not ready for fulfilling the legacy yet. I need to play it more. I'm not ready. I still want another play of Drillers. Oh, Baba is You. That's what it was. Baba is You. Baba is You is an upcoming crafting campaign. I have played a ton of Baba You and at this point, I am ready to go. the way it's structured, you have to play a ton if you want to review it because there's each rural world has like five or six levels and then there's seven rules. So, you have to play it like a lot to actually be able to like talk about it properly. Uh, and I've played it a lot so I can talk about it properly now. So, those are the three I'm going to try to do today. I might do more, I might do less. I'll report back later today with whether I got those done. Uh, but I figure if I get three done the first day and I'm only aiming for 10 to 15. Did I Did I aim for 10 or 15? Let's aim for 15. Why? Why not? Maybe I can do 15 videos this week from the Gen Con list.

3:25 Uh that would bring me up to uh 43 of the 73 games covered by the end of week three, which honestly is not bad. So, let's aim for 15. Let's see how far we can go. I still need to learn and play others. I'm in the middle of the rules for Gizogi as we uh as we talk right now, and I'll be playing some of these later today, too. So, that's basically a start to week three of the postgen vlog. I'll be back later today with an update on how well I did or didn't do. Sometimes I meet expectations and sometimes I really, really don't. Everything is kind of case by case. I'll see you at the later tonight. So, today is going to be a no progress kind of day, which does happen. Which does happen, but I'm still filming the segment because that's how this goes. I actually had someone uh point out in like one of the first in the in the first post Gen Con vlog thing, I skipped from day five to 7. And someone was like, "You missed day six there." And I was like, "Yes, I did in fact miss day six. That happens sometimes." Uh but the nature of of this is I try to count the days that are going on, not the days I miss sometimes. Maybe. I don't I don't fully know. Anyways, I'm gonna go play some Spider-Man right now because it's currently 11 o'clock at night, which means it's time for Spider-Man time uh and my my my zero sugar Mountain Dew. I do a thing every night where I I do like a little bit of soda um and some video game time before bed. Uh usually, honestly, it's not on the big screen. Uh but right now, it's on the big screen.

4:40 Uh today was today was a busy day. Today was a busy day because like again, I have multiple things going on at all points in addition to the board games that I try to play and cover and all that. Uh I actually have a job. Uh, and so like it's some days are busier than others and today was all work all day long. Uh, you know, like, you know, honestly, I've meaning to do like a day in the life kind of video for a while. Maybe I'll try doing tomorrow. Maybe we'll see. I'm not sure. No guarantees. I've always been meaning to. And then I'm like, I need to pick the perfect day that has a nice assortment of things, but you can't really perfect pick the perfect day. It's a little more challenging than that. Uh, but my day today was uh my day started at like 8:00 in the morning going straight to work, which I usually do. So again, Game Found's based in Poland, which means a lot of my meetings are, you know, on their time zone. They're 6 hours ahead. So I got to get an early start. Uh I work straight until 4:00 and then I had my afternoon coffee from 4:00 to 5:30 before hopping straight on meetings again. Again, just depends on the day.

5:34 Some days I like that, some days aren't. Uh then after that, meetings were from 5:30 to 6:30. 6:30 was uh taking my son to swimming and then prepping the kids dinner and watching X-Men. Um, and then after all that was said and done, I went back to my computer to finish up on a few emails because I still had a few things left to do, which again sometimes does happen. I'm usually not a full workaholic uh game found all day long, but some days I have to. They have to everything's a balance. There are some days where I'm filming for, you know, midday getting game plays done and other days I'm catching up on my inbox to make sure things are cleaned. Uh, and then before you know it, it was 11:00 and I was like, you know what? I could sit down and film a few videos, but I'm not going to. I'm not going to film a few videos. I'm going to play some Spider-Man. So, that's what we're doing right now. I'm sitting down. I'm playing Spider-Man. Maybe I'll start a day in the life segment tomorrow. Meaning, maybe tomorrow will be a full day in the life across the whole day, which could be interesting. I don't know. I've never done one. I've always appreciated when I've seen other creators do stuff like that. So, we'll see. Anyways, uh I'm going to get to it and I will see you tomorrow with a progress update. Oh, I guess to catch you up, I did film all the games I wanted to film yesterday and then some, actually. So, yesterday I got more done than I expected to. So, I guess that does buy me today off, so to speak. Anyways, I'll see you tomorrow. I did that thing I do where I start getting uh overloaded with all the things I'm trying to juggle and then this vlog becomes one more thing that I can't keep on top of. But I'm still going to keep on top of it. For this week, what I'm going to do, what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to uh finish up the week. This is like week three of post John Con, week four of the vlog. I don't know why I still count.

7:01 It's so irritating. Uh anyways, um I'm going to finish up this week and then I'm going to take a break for a week from the vlog just to like, you know, reenter and then come back after. Again, this vlog is something I'm going to do when I want to and not when I don't. I'm just giving you a heads up. We're going to do three weeks. Games learned, games played, games filmed, and we're currently on games filmed. To that end, we have made some progress. We got some Drillers filmed right now. So, just right now, we finished filming Drillers, which is great. This is actually I think this is the first, no, this is the second full video actually, now that I think about it, we also did Baba is You. Was that in my Gen Con coverage? I think it was, but that was supposed to do 2 days ago. I didn't do it 2 days ago. I'm actually doing fine for the week in general. I did a five game reviews in one video. I did Baba is You. So that's five games. I did Baba is You. I did Drillers. I'm about to do Into the Machine and I feel there was another one. I did one round. Maybe there's still another one. So nine games so far and the week's not over. So I'm I'm fine with how that's going. Back to Drillers over here. So Drillers is one that I just finished filming. It is the second video that I have filmed using my new third camera angle. Long story short, uh basically I have a camera, a camera, and then a camera. Those two I've always had. Uh this third one I got rid of a long time ago because it was causing issues with my computer. Uh but now I got this new ADAM mini pro ISO. It is not the cheapest, guys. It's not the cheapest. Uh fortunately, fortunately, this is like a random tangent over here.

8:21 I do talk fast. Uh random tangent time. So once upon a time when I did this channel, when I started this channel, whenever I'd buy new equipment, I would do a funding drive. And the reason for that is because frankly I needed to uh this channel lost money for a long time before it ever made money. And even now even now it's not the thing that justifies its own time. It's not like I'm very fortunate and and and privileged to be in a position where I get to do what I love with this channel while also having a job at Gamefound. And between the two between the two I make enough that I don't have to worry about saying, "Hey, I just bought another, you know, $500 piece of equipment just to make the videos better." Like the reason I bought that is cuz I want the third camera angle. I want to get it in. In fact, I plan on adding a fourth camera angle. We'll see how it goes. I'm going to start with three. We're great. Uh the problem is to do that, I have to have three uh well, two foot pedals. Basically, under my desk, I have these foot pedals. I tap on a foot to change the shot. So, I don't edit as I go. Rather, I do front camera.

9:15 In fact, actually, can I see it? No, the camera's not set up right now. I'd show you how it's set up. But, if I tap this, it goes to the front camera. This is the top camera. This is the third new camera. This is the fourth camera which doesn't exist which means I've done this twice now but I tap it accidentally while I learn how to get used to the two foot pedals because I've been using one for a long time. So if I start using two foot pedals, uh this makes the screen go black because I need to fix that. This starts or stops recording and this does nothing at least currently. So that's kind of the new setup that I have going on and I'm really liking it. I'm liking getting a third camera angle in the shot and I'm going to add a fourth at some point. The problem is I direct as I go. My feet direct as I go. my feet are directing the shot. So, I move a component and then I hit to shift. So, I'm my director and the um actor at the same time, which is a lot. It was I got used to it with two. Now, I'm going to get used to it with three and then I'm going to add a fourth. This item ATM mini pro ISO only handles up to four inputs. There is one that does handle up to 12 inputs, but that one was like twice the price and I was like, you know what? I'm going to try this one first and maybe later I'll upgrade to the other one. We'll see. We'll see. It will feel like a bit waste of money on this one, but whatever. You know, it is what it is. Anyways, outside of that, the next thing we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing Into the Machine. So, I have two more videos I'm filming today. I have Red Lanterns, which I'm going to be filming. They are doing another follow campaign. And then we have Into the Machine, which I'm going to be setting up right now.

10:35 Actually, u my next step right now is to take apart uh two undo drillers over here cuz it's been on the table and uh just finished filming this. The video is actually going up. It's 3:56 p.m. when I'm filming this, which means the video is going up in 4 minutes. Um, and then I'm going to film uh into the machine and that's going to be my videos for the day. I still have maybe 2 days, 3 days left on this uh vlog for the week. I hope to get more in. I think my target goal was filming 15 games. Uh, with the f fallback goal being 10. I think I can do it. I think I can do 15. There's still a few more that need more plays, but I think I honestly have to look at the list, but I think I can reliably get to 15 without compromising, you know, what I should or shouldn't be filming in time. The biggest problem is I don't want to push myself to film a game earlier than I'm ready to. Like a good example is Glimmer Deep. Glimmer Deep is when I want to play a lot more. I could film a video today, but I kind of want to play the solo mode. I I want to play every character. I want to see if I can even do a 12x2 review of Glimmer Deep, but I might do a regular review first.

11:31 We'll see. But at the very least, I still want like two or three more plays, but I don't want to film it until I'm ready just to make the quota of like 15 games. So again, it's that weird balance setting goals for yourself. Honestly, this is a thing you deal with in companies as well. Whenever you set goals, you can unfortunately incentivize the wrong desired behavior. Now, in a company structure, it's a little harder because the people setting the goals are disconnected from the people who have to make those decisions. At least for myself, I'm setting my own goals. So, I'm able to um figure out that balance. Anyways, uh this has been long enough for a daily. I was going to like do a 30 secondond update. This is not a 30 secondond update. I will be back with more uh stuff uh when I'm back tomorrow with whatever I did or didn't get filmed tomorrow. We have one day left, which uh might make it hard to get to the 15 games I was trying to get. I didn't get to film anything new today. I did. Did I get to film today at all? I didn't film today at all. Interesting. I did film a little bit yesterday. I filmed a chess rivals. I think I did drill drillers yesterday and Into the Machine.

12:26 Yesterday was actually a pretty busy day all things considered now that I'm thinking about it. Three videos yesterday, none today. Um but I've done 10 so far. So I've done 10 videos filmed. I don't even know the games played. games played. For example, I got two more new games played. Uh we got Mythic Bass over here. This one I got played today. As well as The Glorious Guilds of Buttonville, which I got played today. Uh not ready to review them yet. They'll get to some queue at some point, but they're not ready. Uh I got to play some Sellar over here. Tendellar. Oh my gosh. This is my new favorite version of playing Tend based on the first play to be clear. Uh I've currently played one game of Hive. Uh Tend Hive. Uh my first impressions, I will be playing it more. First impressions are I really enjoy it with the uh caveat that as much as I enjoy it, I still feel that tightness that 10 gave me in the first place. The one of the reasons I was more mixed than 10, the feeling I want to get more done and I can't get more done. I currently have that with Hive, so I'll need more plays.

13:17 But seller, even though seller gives me that tightness, it also gives you an arc of a three campaign game. Uh and that really, again, first game only, first impressions, I'm pretty sure it's my new favorite way to play 10. We shall see. We'll see how I have to wait till to see how the subsequent games play off. But that means that I now have one day left to do this third week. One day to do this like, you know, five games that I'm going to review. And to that end, uh, five more games. I've already done 15 reviews of the various Gen Con games. 15 reviews since last week. Um, well, 10, sorry, I'm saying this all wrong. I've done 10 reviews since last week. I need to do five more. And to that end, I don't know what I'm going to do. I have to look at the shelves over here. I have to take a look and see. I might be able to get to two or three. I don't think I'll be able to get to five because again it's that thing I mentioned yesterday that that idea that I need to actually play the game enough. I can't just sit there and say, "Okay, Glorious Guild in Bavinville. Now I'm gonna film a review tomorrow." I can't just do that. Now, I will be doing aberration tomorrow. That's one. The new Aberation, that's one of the games. So, Aberation brings me to one new game. That would bring me to 11.

14:18 Do I have four more that I've played enough that I can cover? I don't know. I will have to look I will have to look at my Gen Con list and see. I'm sure I can get it to 12, but like going to 15 would be rough. What like I have a bunch of upstairs in the game room. I'll see. I'll see. I mean, you'll find out ultimately. You'll find out. This will be the tomorrow will be the final the final video in this segment or whatnot. Uh but either way, I'm pretty happy with how things have gone so far because if I look at my list over here, let me take a look at my list. Uh because I don't have an exact count because I haven't updated it perfectly. But just at a glance, it looks like I've done at least 37 so far. Uh, plus I think I've added one or two since then. So, I'm at 39. Let's say maybe if I add that, it'll be 40. So, I'd be 40. 40. Three weeks after Gen Con, I'd have done 40 uh games covered.

15:04 Again, a bunch of them in roundup reviews, but all the same. So, that's kind of where we are right now. That's that's the stuff I've done, which means tomorrow will be my last check-in for week three before I take uh the the vlog off for a week, just so I can catch up a little bit on everything else. I'll see you tomorrow with an update on where we ended. And that's the end of another week. 3 weeks into it. 3 weeks after Gen Con. At the end of it all, I have out of 73 games, 60 of them I have learned, which I still feel I could have gotten a few more done, but you know, it is what it is. 60 is good enough. I wanted to get to 73, so just 10 left over, but it's fine. 60 of them have been learned. Uh 48 of them haven't been played at least one time and 37 of them have already been filmed in one way or another. Like a roundup review, dedicated review, playthrough or any of that. And then on top of that, I I went through it. I think six of them I'm ready to film. I say I think because like one of them I might still try to get another play in, but six of them I think I'm ready to film. The problem is today was spent more on playing the last games as opposed to well playing not the last games, playing more games to be ready as opposed to actually getting more filming in. I did do filming today. The filming is just more for like other coverage in the channel. Despite having all the um the Gen Con games I've been going through, I still do many other things from preview coverage upcoming my own topical stuff. In fact, one of the things I did, I finally got the uh All Play shelf review video done. So, that should be coming at some point.

16:24 Although, honestly, I feel like the vlogs are always like two weeks out. So, I don't know what happens first, the um the allplay shelf review or you seeing this vlog. One of those two things happen first. You'll find out. You'll know more than I will. That's basically it. That's the end of 3 weeks of postgen coverage. Like I said already, I'll be taking a break while I try to reenter myself on what I'm doing next in this vlog. Uh, one of the things I'm happy about is I do work on building up various habits. You know, being cleaning up a little bit more here and there, setting myself a project that I've been pushing off. I think when I take a I'm going to take a week long break and then come back and that new week is probably not going to be anything new so much as just saying, "Here are the habits I've been trying to work on. Let me just cement them for another week and then after that, we'll try something new." Again, the problem is you take on too much at once and it all becomes a blur as you try to keep up with just too many too many things, too many balls that you're juggling all at the same time.

17:13 But I'm pretty happy with how this has been going so far. I'm pretty happy with the way it it gives me that extra push to do things both board game related and also tangential in my life. And I like having these little areas that I try to find self-improvement for and try to build up habits around those. But either way, that's that. That has been another vlog wrap-up. your postgen con series is done and we'll come back in a few weeks with more. Until next time, I'm Alex Radical from Board Game Co. Hope you've enjoyed hope you've been enjoying this series so far and as always, I hope you have a good one.