Monthly Live Q&A - Ask Me Anything - April 2026

2:42 Right, good evening everybody. Thank you very much for joining us for the live Q&A for April 2026. Let me know if you can hear me and you can see me. Okay, I'm waiting on the thumbs up from Vicki to tell me that she can hear me. We have a thumbs up. Excellent. So yeah, welcome everybody. And off we go for another 90 minutes or so of quickfire questions where we're going to be answering thousands of questions within 30 seconds. No, no, we're probably going to get hung up on some hot topic that I get all heated about and start ranting about something or other. So the format of this show for those people who haven't seen any of these before is that I'm first of all going to be going through all of the questions that I've been asked in advance over on the Board Game Geek Guild. Thank you very much to everybody who's asked me those questions. And then we're going to be going over to the live questions. So if you are watching live and you do have any questions for me, please put them in the chat. Start with the word question in capitals and then Vicki will troll through the chat, see those messages and transfer them to a document. If you're wondering what the road to freedom is, um, then yes, we are still on the road to freedom, which is basically trying to get to 1400 Patreon supporters, but it's not been a good year so far. We've had probably a small growth, a lot low, a lot smaller than usual, but that's okay.

3:58 So, we're still there. The bar hasn't moved. Uh, we are getting some reverb on the audio. Yep, that's that's probably normal. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'll turn off one of the microphones and hopefully that will help the situation. Bear with us a minute. It's no different than normal, right? Let me know what that's like. I've turned off one of the microphones. So, normally I only have one of the two microphones on when I'm recording these Q&As's, and I decided today to have two of the microphones on because that's what I normally have when I'm doing multiplayer playthroughs. But yeah, let me know if that's any different. It probably is, right? Okay. So, let's go with the first question that I've been asked in advance, and it's Gavin Kenny. Gan is Gavin is normally in first with the questions. Which re-implementation of a game do you feel has been done has done the best job in the past five years five years or so? And this is actually a question that I want to put over to either the audience, if you're watching this live, please put in the chat. And if you're watching this video back later, let me know. Leave me a comment on the video and let me know which game do you think over the last five years or so, an older game that's been reimplemented, which one has done it the best. So, I've come up with a few and I'm also looking to the chat to remind me of which ones I've forgotten about.

5:22 So, one of the ones that came to mind first is Nippon, which has just had a new version. Nippon originally came out in 2015 and it's had a new version, different publisher, Nippon Zybatsu. It's effectively a second edition of the game, and I think that's great. But I love the original game. So, I'm more happy the fact that it's come back. Even though it is a new version and it does have some tweaks and I think it does play better, it is mostly the same as the old one. So, yeah, Nippon. Also, I'm a fan of Kais 1303. And I'm saying that as somebody who the original Kais used to be my number one game of all time, and I still love it. I still think it's a great game, but I actually prefer Kais 1303 because it still packs the same the same feeling that I get from playing Kais, the same player interaction with the way that the Provost moves. I still get that in Kais 1303 and it's a shorter game and it is easier to teach. Another game which I've been playing a lot of recently is Star Trek Captain's Chair, which is a re-implementation of the Imperium system. So yeah, that There's a few for me and I'm not talking about ones that have just been because I've seen a couple of messages in the chat from Jackie. Castles of Burgundy and Puerto Rico. I'm not including those because although we do have new versions of Castle Castles of Burgundy and Puerto Rico, they're in my mind they're not reimplementations. They are the same game with just different components and deluxify. So I'm talking about where

6:54 they've actually kind of reimplemented a system or done a done a second edition. Next question from Vegard. And I read this question earlier on today. And I swear that we were asked this exact question last month. So I trolled back through last month's questions and I couldn't find it. And then I trolled back through the one before that and I couldn't find it. So I have a memory of being asked this question before. Let me know if it sounds familiar to you. This is which popular, some would say mandatory expansions, if any, do you think make a game less enjoyable? So, we've definitely been asked questions about expansions before, but I couldn't find that we've been asked this question before, but I I think I have. Uh, so Vegard says for him, the first examples that come to mind are the Fireland expansion for Darwin's Journey, which he thinks makes the game less enjoyable.

7:47 I've not played Darwin's Journey, so I don't know. And also, he doesn't like Fractures of Time for Anacrony. Now, I love Anacrony. I think it's a great game, and I have played it with Fractures of Time. I've played it more without Fractures of Time, and I think it is a still a solid game without Fractures of Time, but I did enjoy it with Fractures of Time. It just makes it a different game. And if you really like Anacrony and you really like the heaviness and the crunchiness, you're probably going to enjoy Fractures of Time. For me, it changes the game. It doesn't make the game better, but for me, it doesn't make the game worse. But I can absolutely see why some people would say it makes the game worse because it changes one of the fundamental aspects of anacrony. So again, this is another another one where I I can't find an answer. So again, I'm going to look to you in the chat and I'm going to look to you who are leaving comments if you're watching this video back later. Which expansion for a game has made the game less enjoyable? And I'm Oh, no, there is one. Turmoil from Terraforming Mars. And I know that's an easy answer because a lot of people really didn't like Turmoil. might you might just think I'm I'm jumping on the bandwagon with, you know, the hate for the Turmoil expansion, but I have played it twice and I didn't enjoy Terraforming Mars as much with Turmoil as when I played it without Turmoil. Now, I don't hate Turmoil as much as a lot of people

9:18 do, and there are parts of it that I do enjoy, but overall, it distracted me from the enjoyment of the rest of Terraform mode. So, that that's the one I'm going to go with. I'm gonna go with Terraforming Mars turmoil. But yeah, let me know what you think. Next question from Nicola. Why has Mage Knight Emergence been announced so early when he's yet to receive his copy of Apocalypse Dragon? Well, I don't work for Whiz Kids. I have a very good relationship with Whiz Kids and I do have a hotline to some of the decisions that are made within Whiz Kids. All I can tell you is Whiz Kids have come under a lot of criticism over the last couple of years for delays to their games coming out. Now, there's reasons for that. A lot of people don't seem to care what the reasons are, but you may remember a little thing called tariffs.

10:11 And when tariffs came out, a lot of publishers who had games ready to go, ready to be shipped and sale and arrive, whatever, decided not to because they were going to be faced with 140% tariffs or whatever. Tariffs really got in the way of the board game industry. And a lot of publishers delayed their products until the tariff situation settled down. And I'm pretty sure that's one reason why a couple of the Whiz Kids products that were due out a year ago or six months ago didn't come out and and got delayed. We have a separate issue with Whiz Kids products in the UK, but that's another topic for another time. But what Whiz Kids are trying to do by announcing Mage Knight emergence is trying to get ahead of the curve. So they are saying look this product is going to be 2027 rather than announce it late in 2027 and then it be delayed. They're trying to do things a lot more in advance. And for those people who don't know Whiz Kids print in China and then it gets distributed around the world. It can sometimes take three to four months if not longer. When you say to the printers in China, "Print me 5,000 copies of this game." It could be a number of months before then it actually starts getting distributed around the world. That's just the reality of how the world works.

11:34 A lot of people don't see that and they say, "Oh, Whiz Kids didn't print enough of them. Why haven't they printed anymore? They have printed some more. It's going to take four or five months before it gets to your door." So, yeah, I'm not here to defend Whiz Kids. I'm just trying to explain to people how the board game industry works. And you can't just press a button and 5,000 copies of a game come off in China and then arrive at your doorstep the week after. That's not how it works. So, I think what they're doing by announcing emergence for 2027, I think they've done it for two reasons. The first one is they want to let people know that Apocalypse Dragon was not just a one-off thing and that they are continuing to support Mage Knight as a game into the future. And they're also letting people know about the fact that they're working on this new way of getting into Mage Knight. And the fact that they've said it's going to be 2027 gives them the time to, you know, get the files and and do all of that. and and certainly myself and a few of my friends and patron supporters, we have access to those rule books, which we are helping to proofread at the moment. And you may be thinking, Paul, you're you're helping proofread and edit a rule book for a game that's not coming out till 2027. Yeah, because Whiz Kids want to try and get everything in order so that they can, you know, get it out when they want it to be out. Next question from Stefan. Now that you will be Alex Santi Karanka in Barrage. Yes. So, for those people who don't know, Cranio Creations

13:04 have just launched, well, just launched about a week or so ago, a new Kickstarter for Barrage, which has got all sorts of extra bits in there. And what they've done is they have created a number of executive officers based on people within the board game industry, including myself. They contacted me. I've done some work with Krono before and last year I covered Railway Boom and Ants and Echoes of Time and they contacted me and they said, "Paul, we'd like you to be a character in Barrage." And I was like, "Okay, yeah, sure. That that's fine." I don't get anything out of this, but I know I spoke to my supporters and they said, "Yeah, it would be quite cool. We like Barrage." So, the question is from Stefan. Is it time to dust Barrage off and do a playthrough of it with me playing my own exo? So, I'll be honest with you here. I no longer own Barrage. Barrage is one of those games which I respect and I know it is a very good game, but I don't get on with it. And I don't get on with it not because I don't like the game, but because I am absolutely terrible at the game. And I've tried playing it loads and I just never got any better at it.

14:14 And I always found that it was a little bit too punishing. So games like Brass and Barrage, I find them a little bit too punishing that you make a wrong move and you've screwed your entire game up. So a friend of mine, Mark Monk from Ninja Geek Games, he was interested in Barrage. So basically, he's got my copy of Barrage. Will I play it again when my new XO comes out? Honestly, probably not because it will be one of those games where I will just mess everything up from the start and totally ruin my game. But if you're playing barrage with people of the same skill level and you're all good at it and you none of you are going to make any of the silly mistakes, it's a fantastic game. Next question from Klouse. When does expansion content become bloated? So, we're talking about expansions again. Fouse is saying, "I'm beginning to appreciate Lasserta's no expansions because Viddle don't generally doesn't do expansions for his games and also the brass series which again there's three separate games in the brass series.

15:10 They're not expansions. Whereas he's got several big boxes like Ara, Castles of Burgundy, Tririon, Lranhur, where the expansion content is modular and it's exciting but you won't play everything together. And there are other games where there seems to be too much such as nucleium, barrage, anacrony, etc., etc. And the question is when does expansion content become bloated? And it's a really interesting one because in some ways, and I absolutely get your point with nucleium because we had nucleium, then we had nucleum Australia, then we had nucleum court of progress, then we had nucleium energy research institute, and then we've had nucleium jibralta. Not to mention the three little mini promo expansions for Nucleium. So, Nucleium has already got loads and loads of expansions, and David's probably got an idea for about 10 more in his head. When does it become too much? There's two trains of thought on this. One of them is there's too much content for this game. I'm going to switch off. I'm not going to play it at all. But you've got to bear in mind that for some people, Nucleium is their favorite game of all time. they absolutely love it and they play it once a week or twice a week. All of these different expansion content, as long as there is still a market for them and people are still buying them, then potentially they're going to still produce them. And the good thing is those are there for those people. So, if you're one of those people who go, I

16:40 don't like it when there's too many expansions for a game, that's fine. All I'm saying is it's not a bad thing because some people will want that. And I can see both sides of it. I love all of the content that I've got for Lost Runes of Arnac. I don't think they're going to do any more content for Lost Runes of Arnack, but if they did, great. If they did something else for Terraforming Mars, maybe, but it really depends on the type of expansion. So, yeah, two trains of thought on that and I'm curious. Let me know what what you think. Claus has a follow-up question. He says, "What do you think about doing a video series that curates or organizes expansion content into just one or two recommended flavors, for example, the best combination of modules for an acrony?" So, my thoughts on that are I don't ever want to create any video like that for a couple of reasons. First of all, I that's just my opinion, right? I don't want to be one of those people that makes a video and says here are the expansions that you should play with or here's the five top 10 expansions top 10 anyway here's all of the expansions you should not play with and be like right I don't do that I do play through videos to help you decide whether it's the kind of game that you like and I'll do other bits of comments here and there in these Q&A I'll tell you that I don't like turmoil for Terraforming Mars for example but I don't think it's me creating an expansion to say here's an acrony this and this but I wouldn't use this

18:10 and this. No, I I that's not the kind of thing that I would want to do. Probably get more views than some of my playthrough videos, but yeah, it's not something that I'm interested in doing. Next question from Henrik. Henrik has watched my Stone Saga playthrough from last week, which if you're interested, I did a playthrough of Stone Saga from last week. Says it got him thinking about mini games in board games. Perhaps they could all be replaced by dice or similar mechanisms to reduce the complexity. Conversely, it's interesting to think about adding a miniame instead of using dice. Do I think that mini games and dice are interchangeable? No. So, if and we take stone saga for an example. If stone saga was, I'm going to go fishing. Okay, roll some dice. Roll some more dice. Roll some more dice. and then look up the results on a table. Oh, and you've congratulations. You found two fish, some water, and a rotten boot.

19:07 Okay, I wouldn't want that in a game. I like the mini games in Stone Saga where you feel that you're actually actively making decisions. And that's the point with the mini games in Stone Saga is you can't just replace the whole thing with a dice roll because there are decision points within the miniame. So yeah, but I also get the point that if you're playing a game that has a miniame included in it, at what point does it get repetitive? So, for example, there's computer games out there where you have to play a little mini game every time you do a certain thing, such as fishing.

19:54 And I've played some of these computer games, and I know for a fact that once I've fished 20, 30 times, I'm bored. I I don't want to go through that mini game again because I'm just bored with it. If I had the ability in those computer games to say, I tell you what, I want to skip the miniame, just tell me whether I succeeded or not, then that's what I probably would do. And it really depends on the board game. If the board game has a miniame to tell you just simply you won or you failed, you know, you caught the fish or you didn't catch the fish, then absolutely you can replace it if you want to. And I think from a design point of view, it would be good for the game to give you that as an option. You can play the miniame if you want to, but if you don't want to play the mini game, just roll the dice and if you roll uh evens, you catch the fish. Okay. But in Stone Saga, it's a lot more involved in that. So yes, certain certain times it could be replaced by dice, certain times it couldn't.

20:56 Next question. Also from Henrik. In my Earthborne Rangers video, I mentioned that if money wasn't an issue, I would stop doing certain paid work and stick to my known clients. I do this I do this now and again, and it's interesting that I mentioned this during an Earthborn Rangers playthrough. And I think the reason I mentioned it in the Earthborne Rangers playthroughs is we've now done, I think it's 15 playthroughs of Earthborn Rangers, each of which has been between two and three hours long. And I've not been paid for any of those. These are not sponsored playthrough videos. And I'm doing them during the working day. So, it's actually when you look at it, if you work out how many hours that I have spent playing Earth Rangers and live streaming it, which is a lot harder to do than just playing with your friends, how much money I've lost in earnings from the work that I should have been doing when I was doing that playing it.

21:53 It's quite a lot of money. But I don't think about it like that because I want to play the game and I'm covering it for the channel and I have a huge amount of support from my patron supporters and they want to see it. So, it's not a problem. But what I was obviously thinking about at the time is saying, "Oh, this is great that I get to, you know, play this game instead of doing the paid work or or whatever." And I I think I must have said yes that if money wasn't an issue, there are certain parts of my paid work that I would cut out so that I could just concentrate on doing the stuff that I really want to do. Anyway, that's I think what I said. But Henry's question is it said it made him wonder if if I did that I might miss out on a great new game.

22:39 Have I ever reluctantly taken on a project that turned out to be amazing? And there are projects which you're absolutely right. If I was in the I'm only going to do G and I'm only going to do videos for, you know, Mind Flash games and Board and Dice and Whiz Kids and and I'm not going to do videos for anybody else. I would have missed out on Primal the Awakening. I would have missed out on Uprising, Curse of the Last Emperor. And there's many other games as well that I would have missed out on. So yeah, it's really difficult for me. And even this week, I have had a number of emails with publishers who are asking me to cover their game. And some of their games I'm like, "Okay, yeah, it looks okay."

23:27 I'm and I'm probably going to say no to it because at the moment I don't want to be doing, you know, paid work for games which I think are just okay. I I only want to be focusing on games which I think are really good, but ultimately I still need to work to earn a living. So, if I say no to all of the work, then I won't have any work. Um, but there has definitely been some that I'm glad that I covered because I would have otherwise missed out on it. But there are on the flip side, there are many games. I'll be absolutely honest with you here. There are many games which publishers contact me and say, "Paul, we'd like you to cover this game on the channel." And I do and I learn the game and I practice the game and I put every bit of effort I can into making that video as good as I can. And then after that, I'll never play the game again. And ultimately, that is just sometimes what the job is.

24:16 But yeah, I would have missed out on some great games if I if I didn't say yes to some things. Final question from Henrik is he says he's rewatched my Hegemany video or Hegman video after it went into alpha on board Game Arena. So yeah, Hegman is on in alpha on board game arena. He says, "Can you see a spike in views on an old video when a game gets a reprint or a digital implementation?" I don't actually look at the number of views that I get. I don't monitor. I mean, I obviously see how many views the video's got, but I don't go back and track how many views certain videos are getting. I don't really dive deep into the analytics. The only time that I would actually be aware of that is if I started getting comments on comments on the video. And I will over the course of the week get multiple comments on various old videos. I had one recently on a video from like five years ago and somebody asked me a rules question. and I'm like, I don't know.

25:12 It's been 5 years since I played it. But I went to the rule book and I found the answer for them and I and I helped them out. But yeah, if I suddenly start getting, you know, multiple comments on the same video, then yeah, but no, I've not I've not seen that myself. Right. Next question from Aroni. When you are not the one doing the tutorial video, when you are not the one doing the tutorial video, if you don't have time to read through and sometimes detangle and decipher the rule book, are there other content creators that you lean on or trust to teach you games properly? Well, I've said this before on the channel, but I'll say it again. Ironically, I can't really learn games from watching videos. It's just one of those things. I learn games by doing. The best way for me to learn a game is to sit down with the game and have the rule book or somebody teach me while I've got the game in front of me. Any other way if I if I go to bed with the rule book or if I try watching a video, it's it's rare. Now, I have watched some games, some playthroughs or some tutorial videos when I'm like on the treadmill at the gym or something like that usually because I'm doing a playthrough video of it that night and I just want to watch more and more about it. But I'll be honest with you, there are a lot of content creators out there making videos and there are very few channels who I trust because they make errors and they

26:43 don't put any subtitles on screen or they don't do any editing. And I'm not going to start listing them, but there are some channels which go to a lot of effort with regards to, you know, putting not just clicking on subtitles, but actually hard coding things into the video, which I always appreciate. And I'm going to give a shout out right now to Steve from Co-op Guild. So Steve over in America has a channel called Co-op Guild where him and sometimes him and his wife play games and they do live playthroughs, but they also do videos that are edited later. And for a relatively small channel that Steve is, he goes to a lot of effort. So if he's editing a video, he will actually interrupt that video and he'll say, "This is Steve in the editing room.

27:32 I got this bit wrong, just so you know." And everything else. He'll do that and that is great. And if somebody does that in a video, it gives me a lot more confidence. I I can then trust that video because I know that, you know, it's got that in there. But yeah, not uh not not many people, I'll be honest, that I can that I can trust to get it right. And there are a couple of channels in the past which I have watched and then realized they got some major rules wrong with zero annotations, zero cling on subtitles, no no notes in the description, and I'm like, "Yeah, so sorry, but I'm unsubscribing from you because I just I just can't trust you." Next question from Benjamin. Uh, now Benjamin is a recent patron supporter, so thank you very much, Ben, for your uh your recent Patreon support. Uh Benjamin says, "You've mentioned before that heavy games from the last few years are often too complex and bloated." And Ben agrees. Excellent. With that in mind, can you think of any heavy games from the last two or three years that you would recommend introducing to groups who are used to lighter games? Now, this is a perfect discussion for the Slack channel, which Patreon supporters do have access to.

28:46 And I'm and I'm looking to the chat as well because then he's asking for heavy games, but ones that are not too complex and not too bloated and therefore good for introducing to groups who are used to lighter games. It's difficult because when you say heavy game that carries with it a certain level of we understand when you say heavy game that okay this is going to be a a 30 minute teach at least a 30 minute teach for a heavy game and if you've got a group that is used to lighter games then I'm not sure which heavy game. So Ben says that his surprising answer is speak easy because it has whilst it has a long setup and a long teach, it's very thematic and it's the easiest LRA game to understand of the ones that he's played. One couple that was newer to games went and bought the game themselves after their first play. So yeah, I'm trying to think what game have I played recently that I would recommend. I'd need to think about this.

29:50 And unfortunately, I ran out of time this afternoon to get this far with the questions, but I would be looking at one which has a thematic explanation for the rules that I think is one of the most important things in games. And I'll refer back to the Stone Saga playthrough that I did recently. Now, Stone Saga, I wouldn't say, is a heavy game as such, but once you are two or three games into Stone Saga, there's a lot going on, right? There's a lot of rules going on. But one thing that we really enjoyed about the game when we played it is every single rule that we read out and every single card effect all had a thematic reason. So, for example, every fire token at night degrades by one step, unless there is a character in that hex who discards a wood token. There you go.

30:43 Now, if you're used to lighter games and you get told that rule, but you're like, "Well, that makes sense. There's a fire. The fire is burning out, but if I'm there and I can throw wood on the fire, I keep the fire going." People remember thematic rules. If however you've got a board game that says right at the end of the round you're going to move that red cube from there to there unless you're in there and you spend two exper you spend two points to right you're like okay right I've just got to remember that there's no thematic reason for that I've just got to remember it so find a game where there is a thematic explanation for the rules but as for again what I would say Ben assuming that you've joined the Slack channel I think you joined the Slack channel. If you are listening to this, make that post on the games discussion channel and I will join in. But yeah, we're looking for that. Or as I say, another question for those people watching this video back later.

31:37 Next question from E. Thomas. I find the Perseverance Castaway Chronicle series from Minecl Games to be some of the company's best design work. I agree. The concept and implementation of the Chronicle mode feels to me to be something truly innovative in the heavy Eurogame space. Has Mine Clash approached you about doing a video series to highlight this mode? Specifically, do you think that it would lend itself to a compelling video series for your core audience? While I know that you have many videos showcasing Voidfall on the channel, there are not many showcasing Perseverance, and it would be great to hear your thoughts on the Chronicle mode and the series in general. Right, so first of all, Perseverance episodes 1, two, three, and four. I'm a fan of I really enjoy the Perseverance series. I've still not played episode 4. I've played episode one about four or five times. I've played episode two about three times.

32:26 I've played episode three, I think three times, and I've not played episode four yet. So, I am a fan of the Perseverance games. I have never played the Chronicle mode. Now, the Chronicle mode when it first came out, when episodes 1 and two was released, I know got a mixed reception. I didn't play that. But the new chronicle mode, which is actually designed to play episode 1, then two, then three, then four, I am very interested in. and I've heard from various people that is really good. I've not even looked at it yet. So, I do want to cover it and I in fact I had in the back of my mind that at some point this year I would do a playthrough series of episodes 1, two, three, and four. That hasn't happened yet. Mind Clash Games haven't asked me, and there hasn't been anybody other than yourself asking for it. Also, not wanting to be too negative here, my how to play videos for Perseverance have massively underperformed compared to how I thought they should have performed. When I look at the views and the engagement on those videos, it is pretty low for the kind of games that I normally cover on the channel. Now, what that tells me is that the Perseverance games are not as popular as I think they should be. And yeah, so what I'm saying is if I was to do a four-part playthrough series of Perseverance Chronicles episodes 1, two,

33:57 three, and four, there are a number of people who I know that would like that, but I don't think those videos are going to perform well. Now, I don't do videos on my channel just I I don't create videos, what am I trying to say? Whether a video will perform well or not is generally not a deciding factor in whether I'll do it. There's many videos that I've done on my channel that I know are not going to perform very well. But from my point of view, when I'm looking at potentially booking out four working days where I won't get paid for learning the game, practicing the game, and then doing the playthrough videos for something which I already know is not going to be that popular. It Yeah, I've just contradicted myself there. I know.

34:42 But it's it's a difficult one to justify when it is going to be uh a huge amount of work. But no, Mind Clash haven't asked me. I do want to do it at some point. It it will just be a big investment. Next question from Money Science. How many hours a week do you dedicate to board games, job and hobby included? Now, it all depends what you mean by dedicating to board games. Today, for example, I got up earlyish and I've spent all day working on editing the how to play video for Avalon: The Riven Veil. Is that time dedicated to board games? Vicki is nodding. It is. It's not playing the games. It's working. It is work. Right now I'm doing a live Q&A where I'm talking about board games. Is that time dedicated to board games?

35:38 Vickiy's nodding. So if if your question is how many hours a week do I spend on anything related to board games? I mean, on a normal working day, on a normal Monday to Friday day, it's probably between 10 and 12 hours at least, I would have thought. I mean, some days it might only be like today. Today's probably only going to be about seven, I think, if I take tonight off. Maybe. Okay. So on a day off it might be about six or seven but normally it's about probably 9 to 10 sometimes more.

36:25 On a Friday if I'm doing live playthroughs in the evening I will be working from you know 9 in the morning right through till 11 at night. It could be like a 13 14 hour day. So yeah Saturdays and Sundays it really depends you know uh last Sunday I was away at a games day then we were playing Agamonia on the Saturday. This weekend I'm probably going to be working editing a video. So overall it might be roughly speaking 60 hours a week. I I I would say somewhere around 45 to 60 hours a week, but it really does it really does depend on the week. The follow-up question is the amount of time you put in higher or lower than what it was 10 years ago? 10 years ago, I would say it's lower. 10 years ago when I started I was probably working 80our weeks 75 80our weeks and every evening every weekend there was there was no no stopping so yeah I think I think it is definitely lower than it was 10 years ago right next question from Brian Brian says I'm fascinated by the dynamics that emerge when creative spaces with makers communicators teachers and performers intersect with virtual ual channels, non- colllocated, culturally disperse, often anonymous, sometimes not even human voices. Right. I don't think I understand this question. Brian, what has been the biggest delight when engaging with your online community? Oh,

37:57 right. Okay. What has been the biggest challenge? And finally, what has surprised you the most? So, the biggest delight for me has to be the community, the gaming rules community on the Slack channel. So, if you are one of my patron supporters, you will have been given access to the Slack channel. It's a private channel for my supporters and it's a very active community on there. And that is probably the biggest delight that I have had because over the years that we've had that community, it is a community. It's built up. Friendships have been formed. But even when new people join the Slack channel, they get welcomed. And it's just really good to see. And I get a lot of the credit for that. And the credit shouldn't go to me. The credit should go to the people who are on that channel because you're the people that are helping make that channel the vibrant community it is. And yeah, I I I cannot thank people enough for that. Um, if you do become a Patreon supporter, you do get access to that Slack channel.

39:05 And it is, it's just a really great place. We've got so many different sub channels and subgroups. Like the other day, we've got a problem with our box plant in the front garden. It's covered in caterpillars and it's almost dead. Well, within our Slack community, we've got a separate channel for people who like gardening. Now, I'm not on that channel, but Vicky is. So, Vicky posted a picture of our box plant and a picture of all the caterpillars, and we got help. Thank you very much, Chrissy. Um it's such a great community for all sorts of different things for people to discuss not just board games but anything that they're doing and I really like that community being there. So that that that's definitely my biggest delight. What has been the biggest challenge? The biggest challenge I think would be for me the fact that over the last what 10 12 years that I've been a content creator assuming that everybody's nice and that everybody is on the same page and they're not. And it's it it's been hard for me to learn that because I go into these things thinking all of us content creators, we're all the same. We're all enthusiastic people about board games.

40:22 We're all moral people. We've all got lots of ethics. We all do things right. We all want to support each other. We all want to help each other. And then I start finding out that there are a number of people within the board game hobby that are content creators that don't have the same look outlook on life and don't do things and screw over other people where possible. And it's like yeah that that's for me that has been the biggest challenge and it still is one of my biggest challenges. Thankfully the nice people do outweigh the the bad people. Um, but yeah, it's just it's it's been difficult. And finally, what has surprised you the most? Oh gosh, I'm not sure about the surp I've done the first two. I'm I'm not sure I can think about the third one with what has surprised me the most. Um, yeah. Right.

41:15 Next question from Keith. There are a lot of board games named after locations or famous people. Which real location would you like to visit? Which real location would you most like to visit? Which person assume alive even if dead would you invite to Gridcon? So a lot of board games named after locations or famous people. Which real location? So I'm assuming Keith you mean which real location which is in a board game? Oh gosh. I mean there's so many places in this world that I would love to go and there's so many places that are not on this world that I would love to go. So, if we're gonna rule out something like Mars, because that would be cool. If we're gonna keep it to something realistic, then actually there's there's a lot of places. There's there's too many for me to list here. I have always wanted to go to Japan. I've always wanted to just be just in Tokyo just just for a five minutes just to see it and then go, "Yeah, this is too much for me." Because I'm not really a city person. But there's lots of other places that I want to go to as well. The world is such a fascinating place and there's so many beautiful places around and uh yeah, don't get to see that many, but I can't I can't think of one offh hand.

42:32 I mean, I've always wanted to go to New Zealand as well and after they'd filmed the Lord of the Rings films there that kind of reinvigorated my desire to go to Lord of the Rings uh to go to New Zealand and and Mark has just said, "Yeah, great Western Trail New Zealand." So, there you go. I can go to Great Western Trail New Zealand and and find some cows and some sheep. Uh, which person, alive or dead, would you invite to GridCon? Who would we invite to Gridcom? Again, it's difficult for me to separate what is realistically possible and a complete pipe dream. I don't know. No, neither of us can think of an answer. Who would you like to see at Grid Con? There you go. question for you is who would you like to see at Gridcon? Even if you're not going, who would you like to see there as a special guest, whether it's to do with games or not?

43:28 And we'll have that as the secret answer for the quiz, not the quiz, the the contest, which I'm going to talk about soon. So, next question from Dilin. Are there any plans to upgrade the overhead camera to 4K, or if it is already able to do so, any plans to start broadcasting in 4K? Yes. So, the whole 4K thing is currently a work in progress. I need to do a few things in order to start broadcasting in 4K. First of all, the overhead camera is a 4K camera, but it won't do 4K at 50 fps. Personally, I like 50 fps. That's what you're seeing right now. You're seeing 50 fps. even if it can do 4K at 50 fps, I can't transfer 4K 50 fps to the computer because I don't have the right capture cards. And then on top of that, I also need a computer that's going to be able to cope with it. So, my biggest problem at the moment is that I want to stream not just in 4K, but I want to stream at 50 fps. And at the moment, I can't do that. It's on the list of things to do. I've been meaning to do a practice stream testing at 4K for a while now, but there are upgrades to the room coming slowly. And again, I have to say a thank you to the Patreon supporters because without your financial support, I wouldn't have been able to buy this new camera. I wouldn't have been able to provide that new computer. So, there's there's a lot of things that are gradually being improved, but it is on the list of things to do. Next question from Breal.

44:58 Uh, loved the latest live streams. Thank you very much. He enjoys Stupid Monday and Endeavor Deep Sea, some of his favorite games right now. on those or maybe some of the ones I mentioned that they would be worth keeping in your collection. Sometimes we like games but we do not keep them. So what's your current criteria for keeping games in your collection? How many games do you own today? And how would you be willing to one day walk us through your collection? So how do I decide whether a game is worth keeping or not? Well, I can go through this process quite easily because it is simply down to how much I enjoy the game. after a few plays because quite often I will play a game for the first time and I'll be like, "That's great. I enjoyed that. Did we all enjoy that?" Yeah, we all enjoyed that. I play it again and then I play it again and I'm like, "Okay, I'm done with this now." So to give you an idea of some of the hot games from last year's Essen, these are games which I have played either two or three times and they have gone.

46:02 Alloy the astronomical clock which was like super super hot. Covenant the the number one hottest game that was coming out at Essen last year. Coming of age was okay. Voinich Puzzle was okay but had issues. Those are four. Now, I've live streamed all of those games. And at the end of each of those videos, I probably said, "I enjoyed this. This was a good game, but good is not good enough." And then recently, I played Endeavor Deep Sea. And my enjoyment factor purely just how much I enjoyed that game compared to those other ones that I just mentioned was a lot higher. Stupid Monday, played that. that was a lot higher. Fey Swamp is staying in the collection at the moment. I really enjoyed Fya Swamp. So yeah, it's simply just down to playing it two or three times and then making a decision. Now the other contributing factor is space. I have limited space for games. I have approximately 700 750 games in the collection. There isn't space for anymore. I don't want space for anymore. I want to start cutting things down. I don't like the fact that there's games piled up on floors and things like that. So those games I mentioned, Alloy, Covenant, Coming of Age, Voyage Po, they were all good games, but I have to be more ruthless. I cannot keep games that were just good these days. I have to, you know, move them on. Oh, another one that I'm keeping, Railway Boom. Railway Boom is a

47:33 keeper as well. Ants is also a keeper for now, but after I've done two or three more plays of Ants, I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether that one's going to stay or not. So, yeah, it's just um it's just simply not having the space and not having the time to play all of these games. Right, we have a couple of questions left. Oh, no, we've got a few. Um we got about six questions left and then we'll have a short break and I'll talk about the contest. So, question from Ronald. With all of the second editions or reprints today, which game did it the best best and why? Oh, we we kind of had that question earlier. I think we've had that question earlier. Ronald was asking that there's lots of second editions or reprints. Which game did it the best? And I mentioned Nippon Zibbatu. I mentioned Kais 1303. I did mention Star Trek Captain's Chair, but that's not a reprint as such. Um, but yeah, let me know if you know of any reprints that have done really well. One game which isn't out yet, but I'm really glad that they've redone it is Goa.

48:34 Quinned Games have done new version of Goa and the new version is is great. But I was a huge fan of Goa when it when it first came out. So I'm really glad that they've tweaked the game, but it's still 90% the same game and they they've brought it back. Right. A few questions from Frank. Is there a decision regarding gaming rules where on reflection you think you should have decided differently? Yes, approximately 2,000 decisions where I wish I would have decided differently. I I I mean yeah the list is endless and it's down to you know there are many games which I have covered on the channel which some of most of which I was paid to cover well some of which I was paid to cover which I wish I hadn't have done because the game was awful and I should have looked into it more beforehand and decided that it wasn't a game I didn't enjoy it I don't think my audience enjoyed it and on reflection it's a game which I shouldn't have covered.

49:33 There's lots of those, but there's also lots of other small little other decisions that I've made here and there over the last I mean, we're talking 10 12 years here. I've made a lot of mistakes. Some of them I wouldn't class as mistakes. Some of them I would class as decisions that then ended up not working out the way that I would have wanted them to work out. But we've just gained a cat. Second question from Frank. Is there anything at work regarding gaming rules that you don't like doing, but it's part of the job? That's a really good question because yes, there are some parts of my job which I do not enjoy doing. Some of which is part of the job and I can't avoid and some of it is optional and I don't have to do it, but I still do it and I don't know why I do it. So the first thing, one part of my job that I really don't enjoy is when I am having to learn a game which I am covering on the channel and it's not a finished game. It's a prototype copy of a game and the rule book is a complete mess.

50:47 Now it's a complete mess because the game's not out yet. So you might think, well, that's okay. as long as the as long as the final rule book is good, then you're going to be okay if you back the game or buy the game or whatever. But from my point of view, I hate bad rule books. I hate anything which is ambiguous. I hate anything which is unclear. It just drives me insane. And part of my job is to learn how to play games from awful rule books and then have to go back to the designer and ask these questions. And then the designer gives me an answer which isn't even in the rule book and I'm like now the reason why it annoys me is because I do live playthroughs and when I'm doing a live play through I'm already my anxiety is already a little bit high because I'm oh the microphone's working or the camera is working. Has the computer crashed again?

51:40 to have the added extra overhead of something could happen in this game that I don't actually know what the rules are for it. That makes me really uncomfortable. So, it is just the nature of the job. I can't get away from that unless I say, well, in fact, this is the funny thing, right? If I was to say, I'm not going to cover prototypes anymore, right? If you've got a game coming to Kickstarter, I'm not interested. I would suddenly lose a lot of income because that is a part of my job. But also, there are some games that come out, published games, where the rule book is terrible. I remember being asked to create a how to play video for a game, and I'd agreed to it because the game looked interesting, and I'd agreed to do this how to play video for the game when it came out. And then the game came out, the final version of the game with the final rule book. And the rule book was awful. Absolutely awful. And I'm like, this is a finished game. and I'm having to try and work out how to play. And I had this massive list of questions for the designer. And they came back to me with all of these answers. And I'm like, well, do you realize what you've told me contradicts what's written on page six?

52:46 Oh, yeah. The rule book's wrong. Right. And yeah, it's part of the job. I don't like it. It Yeah. It just makes me angry. Makes me frustrated. There are other things where I could potentially turn them down. So, so some parts of the paid work that I do, if I don't enjoy doing it, I could actually say, "Actually, I can do that and you're gonna pay me for that, but I don't enjoy doing that kind of work. I should be learning more to cut those things out." Next question from Frank, in your one of your last Q&A, you mentioned Oh, no. That's a question. We talked about that earlier. Frank. Yeah, Frank was um interested in the discussion that we had last month where there were channels buying fake views and fake likes. But yeah, I I've spoken to Frank about this. We talked about that last month. Next one. Frank says, "Thanks for your playthrough of Stone Saga.

53:40 Uh what is my opinion on the problem with the Erata for the game?" Yeah, so Stone Saga, it's just come out. Backers are getting their copies or backers now all have their copies. I've covered it on the channel last week and there is going to be a reprint of it. It's going to be going live at some point in the next few weeks and there is a lot of Arata for Stone Saga. So, let's not beat around the bush. Let's, you know, call it as it is. There is a lot of for Stone Saga. First of all, there's a rata for a lot of games that come out. I'm not defending it. There is there is too much irrata in my opinion, but there are errors with games that come out. There are bigger games that come out and there's still errors in them. And Stone Saga is one of those games that's very involved. There's a lot of detail, but it's not really problems with the rule book. It's problems with some of the text on some of the cards that doesn't lead to the right outcome or things like that. Earthborn Rangers had it to a lesser extent. And there's a lot of games that come out where there is narrative, there is text, there is things like this. Yes, there is too much in Stone Saga. So the their their quality checking when they were producing the game wasn't as good as it should have been. I'm helping them to identify as many things wrong with the game as possible. And the idea with the reprint is that they're going to be fixing all of those things and they're going to be offering like upgrade kits to existing backers or or whatever. So it is one of those things with the game.

55:09 Now, having been through the process of reading through all of the online Arata and manually adjusting things in the books, we thoroughly enjoyed our plays of it. And it is just one of those things that you need to be aware of. Thankfully, there is a great Discord community. There are people there that are able to help out. So, in an ideal world, these problems wouldn't happen, but it's yeah, it it is what it is. Right. Next question from Blaine. Uh, how would you compare the play experience of the retail version of Voidfall with the triple layer house boards and other components upgrades? Good question. The play experience is 99% the the same. I'm happy to play Voidfall with the retail version, with the non-triple layered boards, without the miniatures, just with the tokens, and without the metal thing. Right.

56:02 Happy. And for me, the play experience is 99% the same. Do I like the fact that I've got the nicer version? Yes. Will I always use the nicer version if I have it? Yes. Does it change the play experience for me? Yes, but only by a very small percentage. That's that's my personal opinion on it. Next question from James. Where do you see yourself and the channel in the next five or 10 years? Is there a particular direction you'd like to steer the channel in or new segments you'd like to add to the channel? So, James, I always have ideas for new things that I think would be great. I've had loads of ideas over the last two years. I've done none of them because I barely have enough time to do the existing stuff that I'm doing. So, every time I have a new great idea, I have to remind myself. I struggle to find time to film the blog every month, let alone do all of this new stuff. So, where do I want to see the or where do I see the channel in the next five or 10 years? Honestly, I don't see much changing with the channel. Um, the channel is what it is. It does what it does, and I'm happy that I've got a lot of loyal supporters who follow me.

57:13 Growth of the channel is a lot lower than a lot of my peers, and it would be nice if that was higher, but I I've done everything I can over 10 years to try and help that. Everything I've done has failed, so I'll just continue doing what I do. All I would say is over the next five years I am hoping to cut down the number of videos that I do for games which again I I I I wish I hadn't have covered. So that is down to me becoming better at looking at the rule books more in advance and deciding whether it's a game for me. Yeah, we'll we will see. Right, next question from TP. Having recently played Kais for the first time and loved it, I am looking to add more elegant games to my collection that have relatively simple rule sets. So, I'm assuming you're talking about Kais 1303 because the original Kais I wouldn't have said was relatively simple. Anyway, perhaps focusing on one mechanic, but significant depth. I've also just sourced Paris after watching your playthrough. Yep, good game. Which looks to be on a similar theme. I love complex chunky games, but there does seem to be a reliance at the moment on the kitchen sink approach to board game design, yet where every possible mechanic is added. What elegant games do you rate highly? So, yeah, just touching on what was said there. This is something that I've been speaking about now for the last six months is that a lot of modern medium to heavy Euro games

58:47 for me, they're all bloated. They're too much. And it's only when you play a game like Kais 1303 or the new version of Goa like when we went back and played Taj Mahal again. You look at these games and you're like this is elegant. This is streamlined. This doesn't need, you know, five games all mashed into one that take up an entire table and take 45 minutes to explain. I I don't want that in my mediumweight games. So, elegant games that I rate highly. Well, gosh. Um, where where do we start? I mean, we talked about KAS30. Uh, let me just pull up my collection on Board Game Geek quickly and see. Um, I'm just going to go through it and just try to pull out a couple from my collection.

59:38 I'm not going to go through all 750, but which ones on here do I think would I class as elegant? I mean, Concordia, Concordia is the very definition of elegant. And if you haven't played Concordia, it is probably the most elegant Euro game that there is. The rules are really um streamlined and simple and it's all just play a card and and do what the card says. So, I find that quite streamlined. One game that I am personally not a big fan of is another game that I respect, but I'm terrible at it and I can't seem to get any better is Age of Steam. The original Age of Steam. I think that is quite elegant in the way that that works. The rules for that I don't remember being that complicated.

1:00:27 So yeah, Age of Steam is another one. I'm going through I'm going through this list and a lot of these are actually I wouldn't class these as streamlined. I would class these as all kind of medium complexity game. I did mention Taj Mahal which I think has had a new version recently. Taj Mahal is is really good that's very streamlined. A lot of the old games from 20 25 years ago. Uh Puerto Rico even. Now Puerto Rico is a little bit added onto the complexity but it is elegant. It's very elegant. And I remember recently when I played Puerto Rico, I taught a game of it in like 15 minutes and then we played it in 90 minutes and I was like I I' I've forgotten the days when this was possible where you could teach a game in 15 minutes and play it in an hour and a half. Um there are so many games which are just, you know, overly bloated. Oh, there's another game that I do want to mention as well and I should have mentioned this earlier on when we talked about new versions. Princess of Florence. Although to be fair, I don't think the old ver I don't think the new version of Princess of Florence actually changed anything. I think it's the same game. They did add a like a an extra a little variant way of playing it. But yeah, Princess of Florence was redone by Whiz Kids and Korea Board Games a couple of years ago. And Princess of Florence is an absolutely classic um game that I I absolutely loved when it first came out.

1:01:51 Um, that'll do it for now, I think, without without going through my full list. That that is a few of them. But again, leave me a comment. If you're watching this video back afterwards and you can think of a game which you would class as elegant, you know, not a sprawling mess, then then let me know. Elaine, is an anemy an enemy? I think that's a that's a very deep question. Next question from Patrick. Love the channel. Thank you very much. Um, you recently got to play Endeavor Deep Sea. Yes, it was not sponsored. You are absolutely right. I had mentioned that it was on my longtime I need to get to list and everybody said that I would enjoy it. I seem to enjoy it. What's next on that longtime list of Oh yeah, what is next?

1:02:36 I'm not sure there is anything. I So yeah, what Patrick is saying is that Endeavor Deep Sea is a game which has been out for about a year and everybody's been playing it and everybody's been telling me how much I'll enjoy it and I was like, "Yeah, I know I'd enjoy it. I just haven't got around to playing it." And then finally I got round to playing it and it was amazing and I've loved it. Patrick's Patrick is asking, "What else is on my list of games which everybody is telling me that I will love that I haven't got round to playing yet?" I don't think there well if there is I've forgotten. I know there's a lot of people that have been saying oh you should try this game Paul you'll really enjoy it and I'm like yeah but I problem is I hear that a lot and every time I hear that I kind of build and build up a wall in my brain to say no not interested not interested. Endeavor Deep Sea was one of those ones where I allowed the wall to open because I enjoyed the original Endeavor. So yeah I I I can't think of one. If you can think of a game which you think I should try because you know I'm going to absolutely love it, please let me know.

1:03:44 Obsession. That's a good one, Matt. Yeah, Obsession is a game which loads of people have been telling me for the last two or three years now. I think that I would enjoy and it's one which I'm thinking I might try at some point. Yeah. Right. That's it for all of the questions that we've been asked in advance. Thank you very much for that. It's 5 6 feels later. I'm very tired today. So, we're going to have a short break now from the questions and I'm going to tell you about the contest. So, every month as part of the live Q&As's I give away either £50 or £75 of games vouchers from Games Law. So, Games Law is the UK's largest specialist games retailer and I've been friends with them and I've got a professional relationship with them. And what happens is every month they give me£25 pounds of vouchers and I add to that with 25 pounds of my own money and together we give somebody50 worth of games vouchers. And the winner last month is Hannah Murray.

1:04:40 So congratulations Hannah. I have contacted you. I've spoken to you. So Hannah's been contacted. Hannah has won50 of games vouchers from last month. this month. All you need to do to enter the contest is click on the link which is appearing in the chat right now and it is in the description of this video. In fact, it's not in the description of this video. Vicki is going to put it in the description of this video now. And all you need to do is you need to tell me your name, your email address, and you need to put in the secret word. And we decided what was the secret word? Who would you like to come to Gridcon? So, even if you're not coming to Gridcon yourself, imagine you were coming to Gridcon. Who would you like to see as a special guest? And it can literally be anybody. Board game related, not board game related, dead, mythical person, whatever you want. Who would you like to see invited to Gridcon as a special guest? That is what the secret word is.

1:05:35 So yes, you can enter from anywhere in the world. However, Games Law is a UK company. So yeah, it's going to cost them to post the games to you and I believe if you're in the United States, I don't know about shipping to the United States because I don't know what the situation is there at the moment. Now I say it's £50 of vouchers. If you are one of my Patreon supporters, then as a thank you from me to you, I give you an extra £25. So, if you're a patron supporter, you actually win £75 of vouchers instead of £50 of vouchers. So, yes, that's that's just a way of me saying thank you very much to you for all of your patron support.

1:06:20 Right now, what we're going to do is go to the live questions. So, anybody who has been asking questions since we've been live, I am now going to go through those questions. I have not seen these before and we have enough to keep us going for a little bit. So, first one from Elaine. I did a video on Earth Express. I did. Elaine says, "I got an email from them saying that it's going live with another game from the Earth series called Behind the Lens. Will you be covering this one as well?" No. So, I agreed that I would cover Earth Express. I think they wanted me to do both, but at the point they contacted me, I looked at my how busy I was this week, and I didn't want to overcommit. I knew I was already going to have a really busy week this week and last week, so I agreed to cover one of them. And they said, "Well, which one do you want to cover?" And I said, "I'll cover Earth Express." So that's why I've covered Earth Express. Behind the Lens has been covered by other content creators. And I'll be honest with you, they asked me yesterday to do the official how to play video for both of these games. I have provisionally agreed. So, when these games come out, I will be creating the official how to play videos for both of these games.

1:07:36 That won't be until like January or February next year. But yeah, no, I'm I'm not covering Behind the Lens. I don't actually know that much about it other than you're a photographer wandering around taking photos. Next question from Tabletop Triador. Are you planning any more Uprising or Cloud Spire? Not on the channel. I don't have any plans to. I'd love to. absolutely love to. What I will tell you is that I have had since covering Uprising on the channel, I've had three more games of it offline, not in the house, at various other places. And I've got another game of it planned for July. But at the moment, I don't have any more plans to cover Uprising or Cloud Spire on the channel. In fact, that's a lie. I will be covering the solo mode of Uprising when it arrives, but I don't know when it's going to arrive, but I will be covering it whenever it arrives because there is going to be a true solo mode for Uprising coming out. I think it's maybe later this year. I'm not sure when. Next question from Craig. Any news or info for Gridcon? Yes, Craig. There will be an announcement later on today if you are a Patre supporter about Gridcon. So, if you're one of my patron supporters, keep an eye on your email and keep an eye on the Slack channel because some point later on this evening, there will be an announcement.

1:08:55 We'll be announcing the dates. We'll be announcing when tickets go on sale and various other things. Um, right, next question. Any news about the Lost Runes of Arnite giveaway? Yes, the Lost Runes of Arnite giveaway has all been done and finished. Thank you very much to everybody who watched those videos. Thank you very much to everybody who entered. But the winners have been chosen. CGE has been contacted and I believe that CG has now contacted the winners and is in the process of getting them their their game. So yeah, the basically me and Rick did a six-part playthrough series of the Lost Runes of Arnite Missing Expedition campaign and CG supported that by giving me uh games to give away. Well, they not given me the games to give away. They've got the games. I just told them who won the giveaways uh and they've been sorting that. Uh, next question from JMS. I'm not sure where to ask, but I joined the Patreon a while ago, but I never joined the Slack. When I tried today, the link doesn't work. How do we get this added?

1:09:54 Right, I can sort this out. I just need to look up your Patreon account and then I'll find it out. So, I've got JMS 31896. Do we have a real name? No. Right, drop me an email, paul.groenoutlook.com, and I can sort it out. We'll definitely get you on the Slack channel. Um, yeah, drop me an email and and we'll we'll try and sort that out. Next question from John. What are your thoughts on IR so far? Could you see it making your top 10 games of 2025? Honestly, I'd forgotten about it. Um, I really enjoyed it. I've played it three times. Could I see IR making my top 10 games of 2025? Possibly. In fact, I last week somebody asked me about my top 10 games of 2025.

1:10:40 And at some point this year, I will be doing my top 10 games of 2025. And I went back through all of the games that came out in 2025. And I was like, h might struggle. Now, I am going to do a top 10, but overall, the quality of the games in 2025 for me was a little bit lower than the quality of games in 2024. That's not to say that there weren't some fantastic games in 2025. To give you an idea, Galactic Cruise is technically a 2025 game. Decas is a 2025 game. So, spoilers right now, having had a quick look at all of the games that came out in 2025 that I've played.

1:11:26 Those are my top two. I'm not going to tell you which one is my number one and which one is my number two, but IR was really good and I did really enjoy it. So yeah, that that is a possibility actually to get back into my um top 10. And actually going back to what I said earlier on about games that I played two or three times and decided to get rid of, IR is staying in my collection. I'm I'm not getting rid of that one. I I enjoyed my two or three plays and I want to play it more. Next question from Malikite. A few months ago, you mentioned you were going to cover Kingdoms for Lawn. Any updates? Yes. Let me tell you exactly what I'm doing for Kingdoms for Lawn cuz it's over there. It's in a box. Um I looked at this earlier on today, but I'll I'll tell you this. I'm looking at my work diary now and I'm going to tell you right. So, Kingdoms for Lawn July. At the start of July, on the 6th of July, which is a Monday, I'm going to be doing an unboxing video of Kingdoms for Law. Now, I've just said the box is over there in the corner. Why am I not doing an unboxing video right now when the game is over there in the corner? There's reasons.

1:12:44 So, unboxing video on the 6th. On the 7th of July, I am going to be doing and I think this is going to be a Patreon only stream. I am going to be learning how to play Kingdoms Fallon from the tutorial. I think that this is a Patreon only stream. I need to double check what I've agreed with the publisher. And then at various points in July, I believe. No, hang on a minute. No, I think that's all I'm doing. I can't remember now. Right, July, I'm going to be covering Kingdoms for Lawn. I've actually forgotten. I would need to look in detail as to what I've agreed to do for this game, but I thought I had something booked in Kingdoms for Lawn. Yeah, I'm going to have to look at this later on. I'm going to write myself a note. I need to look at it later on.

1:13:44 I'm pretty sure I've got a couple of playthroughs or at least one playthrough booked in and I did have it booked in and I've moved it and now it's not in the diary at all. It could be that weekend that I'm at Manacon. Yeah, I think I need to do this. So, I'm going to Manacon in July, which is a UK convention. And I realized a few weeks ago it wasn't in my diary. So I actually think I had Kingdoms for Lawn planned for that Friday, which I can't do because I'm going to Manacon and I need to move it. Yeah, I think that's I think that's what it is. Anyway, July, I will be covering Kingdoms for Lawn in July. There you go. Um, next question from John. Have you had a chance to play Unstoppable yet? If so, what were your thoughts on it? I haven't I haven't had a chance to play Unstoppable. I've heard well I've seen other people playing it. I've seen posts on social media and on the Slack channel of people playing it. And I own I learned this week because I knew that there was going to be a game coming out based on the Dungeon Crawler Carl books.

1:14:50 And I found out this week that it's actually Dungeon Crawler Carl Unstoppable. So I think it's the Unstoppable game. Tell me if I've got this right. It's the Unstoppable game that has been rethemed to Dungeon Crawler Carl. So, no, I haven't played Unstoppable. I don't actually know that much about it, but yeah, it's one of those ones where it probably is something that I would enjoy. I just don't have the time for everything. Uh, David is asking, "Was I a was I a student at Exit University before working there?" So, I've known David for many, many years, and David didn't know that. No, I was not a student at Exit University. David, I was a student in 1989 is when I was a student and uh no and I was actually a student at Lancaster Polytenic and if you don't know what a poly techchnic is then you're quite young I think. Um yeah so it back in the day we used to have universities and we had polytenics. We don't have poly technics anymore in the UK. We just have universities now. But yeah, it's now the University of Lanasher, but I was uh it was Lancaster Polytenic is where I was in Preston. So, no, I was not a student at Exit. Uh, next question from Malikite. Any plans to cover Aridia? It seems like a game you would enjoy. Yeah.

1:16:08 So, I again I have no plans to cover Aridia, but everybody that I know that has played it has told me that I will love it. So yeah, I I am 99% sure that I will love Aridia, but I don't have plans to cover it. And part of that is because I just have to try to not allow myself to get involved in too many games because right now I could literally take three months off work and I might just get through playing all of the games that I want to play. I've got Stone Saga that I now want to play a full campaign of and I have no time. I want to do a full playthrough series of Perseverance Chronicles episodes one, two, three, and four. No time to do that. I want to play Fate Forge, the whole campaign of Fate Forge. No time.

1:17:00 Fate Forge is getting an expansion that's coming out. I want to play that. No time. I want to play loads of games of Stalker. No time. I want to play the Earthborne Rangers Legacy of the Ancestors. That's going to be about 50 60 hours of gameplay. No time. So, Aridia, whilst it is probably going to be something that I very much enjoy, I don't even want to try it because then I'll be like, "Oh, I must play this." Um, but yeah, next question from Martin. Would you cover a game without having a contact with the publisher if your patrons would really, really want it? I mean, I do that all the time, Martin. Would I cover a game without having a contact with the publisher if my patrons would really, really want it? Yeah. I mean, I' I've done that not often because I need my contact with the publishers in order to get the game in the first place, but I'm pretty sure I've done that. Now, let me just again what I'll do is I'm going to go through all of the games that I've played in the last few months.

1:18:04 And this is just just out of interest. How many of these games have I played which I have no contact with the publisher? It's not going to be many. So, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, here's one. Pathfinder Adventure card game. So, I have played this year three games of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and in July I'm going to be doing another three games of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and I have no contact with Piso whatsoever. I have tried but I don't get any response from Piso anymore. So, that is one game that I have covered on the channel and I will be covering again and I have no contact with the publisher. The rest of them, all of these, looking down the list, these are all ones where I actually have contact with the publisher. And in most of these cases, a very good contact with the publisher.

1:19:10 Uh, that one, that one, that one. Yeah, that one. That one, that one, that one, that one. Wow, that's interesting. I would have thought it might be more. But yeah, theoretically, and don't use this as an excuse to get me to play something that you know I'm going to hate, but theoretically, if a lot of my Patreon supporters said, "We want you to play this," then then I would do it. The problem at the moment is, like I keep saying, is is just a lack of time. Now, what I do is that on average, once a month, I will do a solo playthrough and I will shortlist a bunch of games for me to play and I will put the vote up to my patron supporters. But yeah, I'm all up for that. If you wanted to maybe start a post on Slack or something like that and say, you know, if if hundreds of my Patreon supporters say, "Paul, we want to see you play Obsession," then I I will make it happen. Um, but it's difficult for me to justify taking on a new game that I'm going to have to learn to cover, which I'll probably only play once and then it's done, rather than playing one of the hundred games that I've got that I absolutely love. So yeah, it's it's about justifying the time spent.

1:20:21 Right, final question for today and then I think that's it. Well, I'll put I'll put it out. Last last chance for questions. If you have any questions, please put them in the chat now because otherwise in a few minutes that's it. We're going to have no more questions left. In fact, we got two. So this is from uh Chill Halvan. Two witches watches two watches. Which Oh, I can't say that right. You're just trying to get me to say silly things. Right. The actual last question is from Patrick. What was the last game that you bought with your own money? I can answer that one very easily. Well, Vicki bought a game with her own money, which was Lacuna, right? But the last game that I bought with my own money was Blackstone Fortress because Games Workshop basically said, "Go away.

1:21:09 We don't want to speak to you." So, I bought it myself. So, yeah. And in fact, that's the last game that I bought with my own money for maybe four years, maybe three or four years. I did buy a g I did buy um what did I buy? That card game that basically like Magic the Gathering from Level 99 Games. You won't know it, but I'm looking at you anyway. It's a card game that represents the trading card game market where you're buying and selling cards. Oh, I can't remember it. Anyway, that one I bought that secondhand and I've not played it yet. Yeah, Freedom of the Galaxy would be no contact with the publisher. Uh, yeah, that's that's a good point, Peter. Um, Murray's in the chat just just asking about the freedom at the bottom. So, yeah, what the freedom the road to freedom is is this crazy idea that I had at the end of last year because I've seen other content creators do this.

1:22:07 Other content creators have like goals and they say, "Right, we've got a new goal and if we reach this goal, we're going to do something great." And it always seems to work out for other people when they do it. It's not worked out for me that well. So, I launched this new goal at the end of last year. So, it's been running for four months now, which is the road to freedom. And it basically is if we get to 1,400 Patreon supporters, I will do a live stream of a game called Freedom in the Galaxy. Now, since announcing this goal, Patreon support has been uh and in I'll be honest with you, in the last two weeks, I've lost about 15 Patreon supporters and gained two. So, at the moment, the Patreon campaign is on a bit of a downward slide. It just makes me thankful of all of the people who do stay with me as a Patreon supporter. So, yeah, very much thank you. Uh Millennium Blades, that's it. Millennium Blades is the game that I was thinking. So, I did buy Millennium Blades with my own money.

1:23:03 I think it cost me 20 quid. uh and have not played it yet. But anyway, that's what the road to freedom is. So, we'll we'll do a Patreon shout out now. If you are one of my Patreon supporters, thank you very much. If you're not one of my Patreon supporters, but you want to help me help support the channel, help contribute to it. And remember, all of my advertising revenue goes to charity. Every single penny of advertising revenue goes to charity. And if you want to know all of the details of uh all of the charity money from last year, go and watch my latest blog. There is a section in there where we talk about the 11 different charities that we gave like5 or 600 pounds to and I'm only able to do that because the patron support is is good that I don't need that advertising revenue. So that all goes to charity. And if you are one of my patron supporters, you do get access to the Slack channel, you get access to bonus playthroughs, you get access to voting on which games I'm going to play, etc., etc., etc. And uh yeah, if we do get to 1,400 Patreon supporters, at the moment, I I can't even say when that will happen because Patreon support has been dropping, but if we do, when we do, we will play Freedom in the Galaxy, which is a very, very old game. Look it up on Board Game Geek if you are if you are interested in it. Right. Do we have any other questions? We do. Another question from John. I'm trying to decide which game to buy, IR or Ants. Which would you go for? Oh, I or Ants.

1:24:28 I mean, I've not played either of them in about 3 months, but I think I remember enough about them. I'm not sure actually. I'm going to I'm going to not answer this question because I have enjoyed both of them for different reasons. I think IR is probably a slightly lighter game. I think Ants has a lot going on. It's not overly complex, but it's definitely medium to heavy. I think IR is probably a slightly lighter game, but both are good. They they just they're just very very different in the way that they play. Um, but yeah, I can't I can't choose between those two, honestly.

1:25:13 So, right, that's it. I think we're all done for another month. So yeah, thank you very much to everybody for joining me. We've had loads of questions. So if you are watching this video back afterwards, the questions that we want your answers on are which reimplementation of a game has you felt has done the best job in the last 5 years or so? Which popular expansion do you think makes a game less enjoyable to play? Uh what was the other questions that we had? We had another question. I'm sure we had another question. It was also about expansions, but they're they're the two main ones. I'm really curious to see what your opinion is on that. And just for those people that joined late, the contest, don't forget to enter the contest. And I say this every month, and these live Q&As's get about 1,500 people watching, and only about 150 enter the contest. So only 10% of the people watching these videos actually enter the contest. It's free to enter and you could win either £50 of vouchers or £75 of vouchers for doing very little. So all you need to do is click on the link in the description of this video which is also going in the chat now and tell me name, email address, and all of that stuff so I can contact you if you win.

1:26:34 And the secret word that we're looking for this month is if you were going to Gridcon, who would you like me to invite as a special guest from from the board game community, not from the board game community, real or fictional? Basically, anything you want. Just put a funny answer in. And uh yeah, Raasmus is saying, "Please forget to enter the contest so he has a big bigger chance of winning." Good point. Good point. Right, we're all done. Thank you to everybody for watching. I will be back. What is it? It feels like Thursday today. It's not Thursday, is it? It's Wednesday. I'll be back on Friday with a live playthrough of Restart, which is another game coming to crowdfunding next week. So, if you're interested in that, we've got a live playthrough of that on Friday evening. There will be a practice game for my patron supporters on Friday afternoon, but the live public playthrough will be in the evening.

1:27:23 Don't forget to enter the contest. Thank you very much for watching patreon.com/gaming rules if you want to support me directly. And keep an eye out if you are a patron supporter for a very important Gridcon announcement later on this evening. But for now, thanks very much. See you next time. Bye-bye.