Episode 95 - Euro Gamers Don't Screw Other Players

you're listening to the broken me show a podcast that speaks passionately about board games for the benefit of those who play them my name's Luke Hector best known for the broken meele YouTube channel and I'm an everyday gamer just like you and I'll be talking about reviews top 10 and just about anything that connects me to board games as long as I have a tea or coffee in hand that is so grab a cup relax and enjoy and remember it's only a game [Music] hi everyone Luke Hector here for another episode of the broken people show and I have no idea if this is episode 95 or 96 because the last episode I did was kind of a special one I didn't have time to do like a normal format like this so what I did was when I did my UK games Expo 2024 review like a big overview of what stuff I played in that I had to do it as a two-part video series cuz it was way too long but I merged the two together to make one giant podcast so hopefully that was good and every body who who either views the videos or listens to the show in their car or something actually got something out of the expo from me but it just meant that that was a special episode for that weekend but we're back to normal Service as of now because the gamees Expo is behind us you know we'll have to see how that goes in the future and Convention wise well I got a couple more normal ones last year like grid con and that but uh for the most part it's just Essen that'll be the next one uh no other ones are planned and even if there were I couldn't exactly get any holiday spare for them because I've uh had to negotiate with work in order to get holiday approval for you know like unpaid leave in order to do a cruise holiday to the Arctic Circle yes I'm going to do an Arctic Circle Cruise coming around December time which I given how hot it is at the moment I cannot wait for I mean I wish I could go there now frankly you know the UK is starting its a heatwave season now where everything's just like you know mid 20s and like really hot when we haven't got air conditioning in our homes and stuff and I know that's you know mid2 is mild for those of you in the US and Canada and Australia and New Zealand and Africa and Brazil and Peru and Asia and uh Southern parts of the Mediterranean I mean pretty much everywhere apart from Europe is fine with this kind of level of heat but we don't gel well with heat I mean we are supposed to be a cold country look where we are on the globe we shouldn't be a warm country if anything that most we should be temperate but technically we should be in the sort of coldish category and yet we seem to be getting like you know Mediterranean temperatures in the summer which is kind of ridiculous so yeah not good for me I mean no doubt I'm going to be uh sweating a little bit by the time this podcast is over because you know the curtains are closed I can't put any fans on I have to shut the doors to you know get rid of kids noises outside and all I have to call me down is the Chingling lovely sound of ice in squash which is pretty much my Lifesaver right now oh yeah lovely jubly but anyway enough about the heat so how's uh things generally generally yeah pretty good I mean you know games wise I'm getting a few games in from the Expo I'm playing some uh old titles I played for a while like uh yesterday I got to play Vindication and stars outter rim with some mates from my Southampton club and that was good fun you know I haven't brought those two out in a while and in fact getting a rules reminder of vindication meant that I could now as of like yesterday night I've got it on the table underneath this I've got the Vindication archive box you know this giant monstrosity thing here I can't even get it all on the camera but I've got it out in front of me so that I could arrange it all get it sorted and also learn the rules to the Chronicles expansion which I have still not yet tried since getting it on the kickstarter I just have not got round to learning the rules to it I have now learned the rules to it now I need to actually get it out and try it so you know we'll have to see how that goes um I must admit it's not something I don't think I need to wait till multiplayer game to try it maybe I should try and get out for a solo game at some point because I think if I just play the normal rules with it the Chronicles expansion doesn't really change whether you play it multiplayer or solo so maybe I should try doing that at some point but I am in a bit of a phase at the moment where I need to learn and play some of the games have sat on my shelf for ages and not got played Western Legends I've mentioned before is a classic example bloated all that in that box God knows how it's arranged haven't tried a lot of the expansion yet have I got too much for it to make it playable and I need to try and get that out but then I've also got um Suburbia collector's edition downstairs I love the I like the game Suburbia Suburbia is a great Euro game but that collector's edition was overproduced and now I can't remember how the player or set the game up from the collector's box so you know there is such a thing there too much and I've now learned that but in the past I hadn't learned that and so I need to make up for some mistakes or Justify whether they should be taken up a whole cic Square by themselves so there's that I'm sorting through at the moment as well as playing other games and getting reviewed content out when I can because there's not a lot to review really I mean if you look at the the channel recently Let's uh let's get the channel up here we go so I mean 23558 subscribers uh it would be nice it's quite a low number for the last month but then I haven't put out a ton of content so I suppose that's Justified uh but then you know the last few videos I've done okay I've done a let's see since the last podcast show or since the last games Expo thing I did uh not a lot really not really not a lot forever home small little game from birdwood games the who did dog park uh that took a while to get any traction uh windmill Valley that's had a little bit of traction and so you know nobody a lot of people haven't got this game yet and very few reviews have been done of it so good that I could sort of get in there first really but still only you know less than 3,000 views I'm pretty sure there's some channels out there who would get like 15,000 the second they put it out you know but then the thing is I do know that some of them use some social marketing tools and uh I don't use any of those if I did I'd probably have the same thing but then also I did a rebirth First Impressions I don't tend to do preview videos and but uh you know I get on well with um you know the lovely people at Mighty boards I didn't get a chance to try out the Expo it's a short game I thought you know what I'll give this one a try and so I gave my first impressions it's not a preview technically because I mean a the rules aren't really going to change but B the kickstarter is already finished so I'm not advertising you to go back this game I'm just giving my first impressions from playing it a few times not a full-fledged review but this is like yeah this is what it kind of feels like at the moment and then maybe when it's released properly we'll give it a full review at that point or maybe I'll just leave it on the first impressions if my thoughts haven't changed so we'll see how that's going but that's not too bad I mean two and a half thousand views and that's only been out since the 19 for a few days so you know what I'm kind of happy with that that's that's pretty good traction for What video I need to do but yep do need to get some more content out maybe another rate my shelf would be a good idea or certainly another top 10 uh let's say I did top 10 sandbox games oh yeah I did do another top 10 I forgot I had a live stream sorry uh yeah top 10 irritating designer decisions so this was sort of late May and around the time of the Expo so me and Mark monk from ninj Geek games we got together you know audio wasn't too bad but he doesn't use headphones so uh the audio Echo cancellation was a bit of an annoyance but you know we did our top 10 irritating things that designers do in games and we definitely had two very different lists and two very different ideas but uh uh under 3,000 views would have liked to seen a bit more for that but you know by all means check it out if you want to see a lengthy live stream where we uh talk about various bids so you know there been some content but this is the summer summer tends to be you know a shorter amount shorter less frequent amount of content from me mainly because there's stuff I want to do in the summer there's you know people I want to see I'm trying to relax I'm trying to deal with the heat which normally um you know sucks away a bit of my energy because you know if I get too hot I just get all the faric and stuff and you know hey fever doesn't help with that either but also there's just not a lot to really review I mean there's not a lot of games that get released and you know the Expo gave me a little bit of content but I don't really have anything else to review except for peacemakers horrors of War but I can't review that until about July August time so I will get that reviewed at some stage I've already done the video for it frankly but the actual video I'm not allowed to fully release until closer to retail release that's the sort of minor embargo I've been given will other people have that same embargo I don't know the industry isn't fair but yeah we'll see how that goes the other things I've got nothing I mean I'm waiting for my review copy of terminus you know that would be good to get but sadly that hasn't arrived yet um I do have a dog park and the same people who did forever home uh I've given me dog park along with the expansion which I've not played either before so that'll be a good one that shouldn't take too long to review because it's quite a light game but that's the main thing I've got to review at the moment you know in terms of got to play this and it's brand new I don't really have anything else so I probably do need to do a top 10 at some point I'll have a look at my uh patreon list and see which ones were voted on after sandbox and irritating one the series I've been considering doing maybe is kind of like a little top and like the best and worst of a designer and publisher type the I don't know if that would be appealing in some way like maybe like like for example doing uh valal theurer and saying right best and worst of valal theur and then I talk about my three favorite games he's done and talking about my three worst you know ston Mar three best games I've done three worst games I've done you know like keeping it in Balance I don't know if that would be of interest to people but all means let me know your thoughts uh you know it's kind of kind of consider them to be like more focused mini top 10s because I can't really do like top 10 check game Edition games or top 10 Bruno cfala games and stuff like that because you know a lot of the times there's not necess you know some of those will work Bruna Cal top 10 wouldn't be too difficult but you know to try and do top 10 Garfield games I can't do top 10 Garfield games they' only released about nine 10 games in period I you know a few more maybe about 12ish but like I say they haven't really released that many games to suddenly do top 10 just seems a little bit weird you know doing 10 out of 15 games tops just kind of feels like a weird top 10 and you know you you kind of need to do best and worst or top 10 or top 100 to get any kind of SEO tracking on the scene if you try to do top five or top seven or top weird number or something you don't get anywhere near as much uh sort of like Awareness on Google and stuff it's just the way the algorithm works so might be interesting to know your thoughts on that uh anything else planned for the future not that I know uh I got a meand I just got a Potter along find some more content to do uh get on with work work is definitely uh stressing me out a little bit in the moment because it is very for the summer it's busier than it should be and I'm getting a little bit run over but uh I you know I'll put it through I'll I'll manage it's just it's going to take a bit of effort and hopefully by the end of July things will be a lot better it's just a lot of stuff is in other people's courts and I'm having to wait and wait and things get dragged out and then I'm waiting to do stuff and then I forget what it was I was doing in the first place when it comes back to me and then you get clients moanings it's taking too long well I can't go any faster than the other person on the side of the coin it's it's one of those things but I'm hoping by the end of July some of those would have wrapped up and things will start moving at a bit more of a slower Pace at least on the positive side I've got this Arctic holiday to look forward too so that's going to be fun I mean you know a couple of weeks in the Arctic Circle cruising up you know Fred olssen cruises up past like a various points in Norway uh trying to remember what I can't remember what was on the itinerary I know like tromo or whatever that was was on there uh but it definitely goes fairly High um you know into the Arctic Circle because the idea is is that I'm going to be chasing the northern lights and going dog sledding and stuff like that so all these things I've really really wanted to do that I've talked about I'm finally going to get a chance to do on a solo crew so that should should be really good when that comes by I mean it wasn't the cheapest cruise ever but this is kind of half funded by my family as a 40th birthday present so this is kind of like my you know I've partially funded it and my family have partially funded it so that I can go on a holiday for my 40th you know so that would be a you know a good experience the only thing I'm a little concerned about is obviously I'm going solo which does mean I'll get a better night's sleep but it does mean that I'm kind of dependent on finding enough to do by myself uh and also you know maybe I have to take some small games with me but also on the the the decency of not decency the what's the word uh the quality of their solo Excursion stuff like that because they usually have things like solo clubs or like meet up with other people who have traveled solo and obviously that's a bit of a Russian Roulette as to whether that goes well or not so yeah we'll just have to see how things progress with that but anyway that's enough uh General updates so what do we have to talk about today we got a few things um you know certainly it's getting one thing I'm getting a bit frustrated with as I look on the internet is that you know I think we've really got into this like we're in another one of these bubble phases where everyone has to love everything and you know movies and TV franchises are just getting ruined by activists doing like you know poking fun at politics and you know casting their agendas in your face and stuff and it's like I'm seeing Doctor Who getting ruined I'm seeing Star Wars getting ruined there being acolyte need we say more you know the uh the witches are the power of one the power of many you know stupid that episode 3 was diabolical but you know so much crap that's going on on TV right now and then you've got other stuff in the news about like you know cheating you know like transgender swimmers and stuff like that there's all sorts of stuff that's going on where everything is just like ever since 2020 like the world has just gone crazy and now we're getting all sorts of weird stuff where everybody is moaning about something but then you know when it comes from a games front nobody's moaning about anything cuz everybody loves everything so every single game I see on a Facebook Fred is this is fantastic this isn't my top five even if they've played it like once or twice you know it's like I've played Terminus it's fantastic it's now in my top five games ever it's like seriously could you play it more than a couple of times before you start declaring it as your favorite game ever but you know this one I've got on the screen here a gentle reain it's finally like come back into print like in Target or something so a lot more people can get it I did a review of this back in 2021 during lockdown where I've got hor horrible hair and horrible beard I mean this is like when I literally just didn't bother to really like groom myself much cuz that's face it we couldn't go out so it's not like I had to really impress anyone but yeah I looked I looked like a beast it was horrible but I've done a review of this it's somewhere in the older like regions of this video I mean you know even before you play have done something on it which basically I suspect she loves it the bits and has nothing bad to say about it but the you know all these other videos have been out in the past mostly all saying oh yeah fantastic love it love it love it there's my one from ages ago as you can see yeah a horrible looking guy there but the you know I gave this one a bad rating I mean I I do not get the love for this game this game is boring it's pretentious I mean hell actually going back to that page you want to say about pretentious Dice Tower even did a video uh recently where they talk about free pretentious abstracts here we go free pretentious abstracts so yeah a gentle rainwood feature on there and I hate pretentiousness in games but this game is not fun it's not there's no strategy there's nothing it's just literally draw tiles and hope you can put them out in patterns and you know your decisions are literally just based on Randomness so who the hell cares and yet people are out there going I love this solo game oh it's one of my favorites ever and it's like seriously do you play other games do you actually have like a criteria to base this on I don't get it but you know this is my dummy account so you can't see my rating but yeah pretty sure I gave it like a three out of 10 I mean this is just such a bad game and everybody's loving it and you can't hate anything I mean I see people going solo reviews for nucleum and it's like nucleum is my favorite game ever now and it's like really I don't see that many people playing it and even then I gave it a good rating at most and even then by now I think it's probably dropped to a six you know I think I might have given it a seven now it's a six you know it's not a game I'd seek out by any means I'll just play it if somebody wants to play it but you know the linear progression of how you score points in that where you must do the the the middle two objectives on the stars or whatever they're called because people nobody mentions that in the reviews and yet it's so obvious the idea that you've got these uh star things on the left hand side of the board I wonder if I can find a good example uh no that's not I I'll try and find something but the idea is is that on actually this will do so in the distance on this photo here you can see that these there these track here with the Stars and you score points for fulfilling the criteria and the objective to next to it the bottom one doesn't score you anywhere near enough points to be worthwhile so you just ignore it you don't care if you score high it or not the one at the very top is such a hard chore to get to it's not worth the expense you pay in order to get that high so you are typically going to munchkin these middle two and so that's basically what you need to do you need to get the highest possible of those two and that will typically win you the game you know I've done that every time I do that I win or do really well you know somebody might do the similar thing to me and just do a little bit better but nobody has ever beaten me focusing on the lower one or the higher one or not focusing on these at all they just don't get enough points and nobody mentions that but everyone's cool with linear scoring I don't know but you it's just that you can't dislike anything at the moment everything is like sunshine and rainbows I'm not saying everybody's got to hate on games all of a sudden but come on can we not have a little bit of diversification in the verdicts here can somebody just put a Facebook thread up where they talk about a game that they thought was garbage or they don't get why everybody loves it so much can we try I mean that would be nice you know in fact saying that I've got another video coming out I forgot to mention um I've recorded a half year review so I'm doing a half year of like January to June of my surprises my disappointments and my best and like and stuff like that well you know there's games that I love on there but there's games that I dislike and well I'm going to talk about them and God knows what you know you know backlash I'll get just for saying a bad word about any game it seems you know God knows whether the gentle rain crowd are going to come on come down on me just because I don't like that game but you know we got to be able to dislike some things you know I'm all about balance you can love something but you got to hate something as well you know let's have some balance here if anything it just makes me realize that you know it would it would help to reassure me that people aren't just sick of fans for everything all right okay well enough ranting let's get on to U uh stuff that's happened so very quickly I just want um should we do the game play first yeah let's do the gameplay I mean I'm only going to talk briefly about this one this is inventors of the South Tigris so inventors of the south tigis after I just Tak whoa nearly took out my nearly took out my drinks holder for my table there oh God sweet succulent coldness I love the cold right but you know up to a point I do like hot showers and I do like spars and relaxation and that it's not like I want to be permanently cold I just don't like being too hot um anyway so inventors of the South tiger yes speaking of hot we're talking about a a hot publisher a hot game that's going to come out and of course a hot setting The Tigress but this is another one of the uh South Tigers setting so we've already had way Faris and we've had Scholars way feris is probably my favorite of the Garfield games range Scholars is a pretty decent game as well so there's two for two all the other trilogies have had a black sheep you know explorers of the North Sea I mean granted ship rights has now improved but explorers are still pretty dull and boring that's the black sheep uh paladins not as big a fan of as everyone else is so paladins is the black sheep of the West Kingdom Trilogy so I'm hoping that the South Tigris is going to be free for free and give me like three really solid games and all will be well well Sarah Shar uh taught me uh the game at the Expo so I got to play sort of a full game of this I'm not sure we might have done some quick start rules or maybe we had to fast forward a couple the bits I can't remember but you know I ran out of time cuz we took far too long to get it taught cuz I say being taught I mean you know none of us really knew the rules that well so we were kind of um ham you know ham fisting it a little bit but you know this one I got to play at least pretty much a full game of it not really understanding what I was doing because and that's one of the flaws of the game this one is definitely I think the most complicated game that they have put out ever I'm not joking I mean more complicated than something like Hadrian's Wall and stuff this is a schoger board of iconography interlinking mechanics little Edge rules and stuff like that which is what's concerning me about this the game play itself was still fun I mean you've got these like crafts people you've got to level up and pay to do various bits of work you've got these different inventions where somebody has to come up with the idea then somebody can build it then somebody can publish it and then somebody can test it and all these different things will score you points in various ways and there's definitely some like you know micromanagement of very tight resource fores there's combo building with uh workshops on your board there's like getting bonuses for you know lining up color segments there's endgame scoring opportunities the theme is neither here or there I mean it is a very dryish theme here so as much as the inventions by vital luro was super dry this one's pretty super dry as well I dare say this is on par with the amount of theme that's in Inventions so not a lot but you know it's a looker it's got like you know good artwork and you know all sorts of bits going on but maybe just a bit too much going on this has a lot of interweaving parts and they're not the most intuitive ever I mean just looking at that does that not already scream out pretty complicated yeah know that's a probably an endgame scenario like the game is finished and this is what it looks like but BL me that is still a lot there I mean it's not like is's very little to look at early but you've got a shipping track you've got all those inventions I mentioned before you've got the meeple placements you've got this conveyor belt thing here on the left hand side side where your workers are leveling up you've got this bit of board here which is all your bonus tiles and all your workshops that you create with you know crazy combo building it's all dice again so you put dice on spots and their values and their colors will matter for various things there's a lot going on I mean look at this card for end endgame scoring Guild majorities royalties track research tiles craft people Workshop tiles invention tiles Builder and publisher influence built and published devices silver and cards any four equals a point that's just the end game scoring wow um and so this is the worry I have with this the game play is meaty it's definitely going to be rewarding to players and that you are going to completely flounder your first game of this because you're going to have no idea how to do well it's like I say not intuitive in that sense and you can easily paint yourself into a corner where you just don't have dice to do or dice to use or money to use you know the resources are super super tight it's unreal and we were really just you know floundering like crazy because we didn't really know what the strategies were in that so obviously this one has a very steep learning curve and that is my concern you know I'm worried that at this rate this could be the black sheep of the tigis family and not to say like I said I don't think the game was bad but if it's going to be such a steep curve I mean wayf farers has got a bit of a curve as it is and so Scholars but I can teach those two a lot easier than I feel I could teach this one this one's got so many little edgy rules and there so many little like like niche things that to try and teach this compared to something like Wayfarers which is a lot more intuitive and Scholars which is easy to teach rules wise it just requires a bit more thought in how to do well this one just feels like it's going to be a chore and a learning curve to teach anyone like nobody's going to be able to play this other than the heaviest of Garfield game players it's easily the heaviest one they've put out and I worry that they've gone too far you know Garfield games do well because they typically make a meaty game that isn't too much of a learning bug bear you know they've drawn the line with things like paladins and Wayfarers but they haven't crossed it and hadran's wall well yeah that kind of crosses the line for a decent rolling right but then I can't really be too hard on hadrien wall because I do like Twilight inscription so I guess it just depends on the mechanics but yeah I'm worried that this one has gone too far so we'll see how this turns out I did back it on Kickstarter so um you know I'll get a copy hopefully earlyish U you know couple of weeks early sometime in the winter and then I'll play it and then I'll review it so I suspect like last year with Scholars you will get a December timed review of uh inventor of South South Tigers Before Christmas that's typically the timing of how this works especially with UK deliveries but will this be a black sheep of the tigers family I don't know but there's potential it could be it may have just gone too far all right uh with that in mind you know the game was s and the company still good good but yeah I was starting to uh my eyes were glazing over on the rules explanation and my guys were glazing over as I was playing the game because it was just so much to deal with but maybe I just need a setting that isn't the Expo in order to play this CU playing this in the noisy setting with you know all the Expo stuff in my brain probably wasn't helping right let's talk about a couple of little Quicky news things so people have been talking about this weird thing that's happened lately where the Hansen Gluk the publisher original publisher of carcassone has basically enforced its trademark of which I believe it has a European trademark for the word meeple um it set off some Sparks in the industry for sure as this article says where they basically said they sent a cease and desist letter uh from Hans and Gluk to a game uh sorry a publisher called kogu Ergo Meo or something like that I think that was the exact bit where is it uh kogu Ergo Meo yeah yeah kogu Ergo Meo it's based on a Latin phrase I forget but um but they received a cent assist letter from Carone publisher Hansen Gluk addressed the use of its trademark on the word meeple um because they were doing uh you I forget what the game was called I think they were calling it meeple Inc meeple incorporated which they've now had to basically say fine we're going to change our name and we're going to change the name of this game so now it's called tabletop Inc and they're even changing their publisher name to cotsworld games cots World Games well uh this is a weird little turnup because apparently this has been trademark for years decades even but they've never really enforced it like this is the first we've really seen them do anything on this front and now everybody's now contemplating whether this is going to lead to more problems where they're going to enforce this trademark I mean look the industry is even considering the word me trade bark is quite a surprise yeah I mean how many games have we had that use the word meeple in a title or in a game you know meeples are used all over the place um it's just kind of weird and this is the we've had we've had Kickstarter games and stuff like that with word meeple used but this is the first time that they've come at them saying Oh this is a problem you know they've been around the term itself was popularized in the year 2000 you know ages ago and we've had mutant mles Terror and meeple City mles and monsters we've had all sorts of me People based games so this is now getting everybody sort worried as to whether they're going to start coming after more Publishers and is it both the word mle and a unique wooden shape were registered as intellectual property in the EU so yeah kind of odd some people I think Cory Thompson and a couple of others so s have actually now tried to trademark the word in the US in response to this so I think this is going to get a little bit ridiculous now but people have sort of joked on Facebook as to whether this is now going to cause a problem for you know people like me for example because I have uh you know obviously a channel called the broken me so people are wondering all right Luke you now going to get a a cease and deist letter from you know Hans and Gluk to say you can't call your channel the broken me anymore I guarantee if they try to do that they will be an outcry because I will make the world know of the Outburst on that and you can pretty much guarantee that this will be a boycotting of the company if they do that but they won't they couldn't care less there are loads of board game channels out there loads of the people that use the word meeple they're not coming after them you know and even then one thing that also is in my favor is that they've trademarked this in the EU I operate from the UK we're not in the EU anymore bks to the annoyance of brexit so technically I don't think they've trademarked it in the UK I could be wrong but I don't think they have which means I don't think they can touch me anyway if they tried but they're just not going to I mean I don't know why they've come after this particular publisher out of nowhere out of the blue this just seems a little bit weird but there's loads of people that use this word loads of games that do and if they tried to go after everybody they wouldn't be able to afford the legal like expenses to do so not to mention going after a publisher already causes a little bit of a stir but they're doing it because they you know this is a potential competitor so they're more interested in their profit line so they're doing this to try and get more profit they're trying to eliminate competition and you know you basically enforce a trademark that they probably spent a bunch of money on and didn't really need to they they trying to justify the fact the trademarket even exists it may even be I don't know about trademark law but perhaps there's a rule where if you don't actively try and enforce the trademark you like lose the trademark it's a bit like how Sony um has to make a Spider-Man related movie every so often because otherwise they lose the license to use Spider-Man you know hence they keep coming out with garbage after garbage after garbage mad web um but the and morus and pretty much everything else they've done in the last few years that isn't animated but the the thing is with this maybe there's a fact that if you leave it too long the trademark loses all value or like becomes public domain after a while I don't know maybe there is you know I'm not a trademark expert but the the main thing with this is that I don't think they're going to come after content creators because if we use the word Meo what does it matter to them it's not affecting their profit I mean we content creators are basically cheap advertising for all Publishers I mean that's basically the long and short of it we get review copies of games and we do reviews and we get the hype drawn about some of the games but at the end of the day we're cheap advertising you pay advertising agencies normally it costs an absolute packet I do accounts for companies okay this is what I do I do well not I do accounts I do tax for companies so I see a lot of accounts I see advertising costs from companies they Skyrocket out of proportions at times okay so you know a publisher doing proper advertising has to spend a ton of money paying giving somebody a review copy of even the deluxe version of a game like a $250 pledge for a complete full in package of a Kickstarter game is absolute peanuts compared to what you would pay for normal advertising so it is such cheap advertising we are basically what's the word I mean we're uh not flogged ah scar scous no scalped maybe I don't know but basically we're we're taken for granted you know you know we we we do a lot for them we save them a lot of money and they're not always uh receptive on it but some are and they're the good ones but the thing is is that why would they care about a content creator we're not making them lose any money and if they were to take the trademark off us or the name off us how would they gain any money also Publishers don't want to pay the legal costs and the expenses and stuff they don't want to hurt their profit so they're just like fine it's a bit of a pain but we'll do it it's easier this way content creators won't be able to afford to defend themselves so they would naturally have to just change their name which given that I've just bought a bunch of polo shirts with this logo on it and only recently changed the logo format a couple of years ago that would be a pain if I had to change my name but the fact is why would they care if they go after content creators the outcry would be insane because Publishers aren't as vocal as content creators you know you want to try and piss off the uh you know YouTube Community where like you go after 50 creators who use the word meepo can you imagine the backlash the social media spread it would go viral before you realize it and everybody would be boycotting the actual you know the actual company so you know there is definitely not a good it's definitely not a good idea if they started doing it so I feel pretty safe it's not to say that it's 100% certain they won't but I just can't see the logistical practical or logical reason why they would bother so I think I'm pretty safe certainly I'm going to continue as if I'm pretty safe all right you know we'll see how this progresses in time uh this probably won't be the last we hear of this but uh yeah this was kind of weird I don't know what you're playing at Hans and Gluk but um you're on Shaky Ground all right uh very briefly we'll talk about the Spiel dearis nominations and I say briefly because frankly there's not a lot to talk about you know year on year these get nominated and every year it seems to be getting worse and worse in terms of what gets nominated this think is probably the most boring year I have seen for the the spiars like seriously did we run out of ideas or was the last year just so bad for board games that we literally couldn't come up with any better titles I mean this is the SPI diars nominations right in the footsteps of Darwin okay did anybody play this game and like it very few people have played it I don't see much call for it and yet somehow this is nominated for game of the year I do not think so uh Captain flip never even heard of this game uh actually can I is do these go to don't go to board game geek but and sadly this is in German I don't know why it's not autot translating but I mean this looks like a kids game so I suppose let's actually look at this Captain flip was another nomination as anybody heard of this game hoist your flag recruit a colorful crew and earn as many gold coins as you can okay so what is it it is um a game of obvious Simplicity explained in less time than a Canon shot on your turn draw a tile from the bag you like it keep it you don't like it flip it and place it on your board to form your crew so it's basically a tile flipping game okay I mean it looks like something made for kids because it looks very simplistic I mean I guess that's what the SPI arus is trying to be but has anybody heard of this game never heard of it before the SPI ARS was announced and all of a sudden it's now a nomination for game of the year and then Sky Team now honestly I don't know much about Sky Team um a lot of people are saying Good Things Are about it I personally have not played it and I probably have no intention of playing it because I believe if I'm correct it's a two-player only game now maybe you can play it solo I don't know but it does say exclusively for two players so I'm going to assume no but maybe you could play two-handed I don't know but I've never played this game because I've got no room for a two-player only game and as I say I can't see anybody that I trust that's I don't know let's have a look uh let's have a look at all the videos so see all videos um anybody I can get behind uh let's see nope nope uh nope anybody no nobody I tend to watch um yeah nobody I tend to watch has uh done anything on this yeah I mean I mean a lot of these are European um creators so I never watch them obviously because I can't speak the language but I'm not you know I can't if I can't translate I'm not going to watch it but yeah pretty much I suppose you know um I suppose yeah Game Boy geek I could give a lot uh I could give um uh them will watch but yeah it's the same people doing these videos I mean there's a lot more content creators out there but I'm just not seeing the the videos on there but yeah I don't see it so I can't really get an objective opinion on this yet I'll have to maybe ask some people I know see if they've played it but is this game any good I don't know it's a quarter of an hour game it's pretty much a two-player only game I don't know if it's any good I'm hearing good stuff though so at least this one is at least getting some Buzz although these components look pretty rubbish I don't like these uh little white um cheese slices or whatever they are at all but the theme sounds cool and maybe it is a sweet game I don't know it probably does need a component upgrade but this could be a good fun theme and it could be a fun game this is probably the one that I suspect will probably stand a good chance or be the one in the nominations I would actually give a try but other than that I just know nothing about it so out of all the potential spiars games though I mean did Dog Park come out in the running for this you know a game with an approachable theme that's pretty family weight that's uh gorgeous artwork and Aesthetics you're telling me that that's not an eligible option but in the footsteps of Darwin was I don't know seems a little bit weird I mean look at the recommendation list ghost riter harmonies which I've still not tried doesn't fit guess it if you can trekking through time and Trio man were we scraping the barrel a bit here um I'm not going to talk about the Kinder Spiel because I don't play children's games so I have no idea but let's face it anything related to Taco goat cheese pizza or whatever that game was called can frankly go to hell um so let's have a look at the Kenner Spiel e- Mission never heard of it Matt Leo game um e Mission anybody heard of it at all 2023 wait a minute that's Daybreak that's Daybreak what it was called a on what oh it is called Daybreak yeah it's called emission AKA Daybreak right so they're confused about the name okay a Cooperative game about climate action okay modern theme nice artwork it does look pretty pretty definitely Daybreak is a bit better than e- Mission as a horrible title but uh is it any good no idea I've not seen anybody play it I've not even seen a copy of it in front of me so where are people actually playing this game that's what I would like to know any videos uh seeing Dice Tower done a review so I suppose I could uh Z Garcia has looked at okay maybe I could give that one a look I suspect it will get a seal of approval though because pretty much everything from the dice tower does uh what else we got European European nope nope uh nope nope nope I do like the fact that somebody's used the uh the captain planets sketch um I forget his name Don Cheeto I love somebody's used that as the thumbnail actually I can't I can't deny it if I reviewed this game that would be the first joke I would put at the start of the video the whole Captain Planet sketch it's hilarious you got to watch it he say recycle those Plastics or I'll turn you into a tree it's great I love it um but yeah nobody I can really get behind on this either so seriously where have all the content creators gone that I trust why aren't they putting videos out but all right so day break what have we got tiet to ride Legacy seriously Ticket to Ride Legacy I gave this one a four out of 10 this one has got so many potential breaking Parts in it it's random as all get out and a lot of the stuff is not balanced I mean this is not something I would consider for a Kenner Spiel I mean hell it pretty much should be level of Spiel it's ticket a ride it's not the most like you know thinky game ever but yeah there's no way I would put this anywhere near to kenish spiel and the Guild of traveling merchants or explorers seriously this barely got a lukewarm response when it got like talked about nobody was really hyping this game up and yet look at it I mean Guild of merchant explorers right I mean firstly this is a 2022 game so how the hell is it even in the running for this year I mean maybe because it's Germany they got it a bit late that's the only reason I can think of but seriously that does seem a little bit weird but this one the most beish like driest Euro game ever I mean it's already got the most boring title in the world the Guild of merchant explorers seriously remember the um comedy sketch on the IT Crowd where they do their board game channel and they talk about really boring sounding games this one would actually just fit if you just inserted it in there but look at it beiging cubes Beijing cubes beian cubes with a little bit of color thrown in which I think the photo filters are doing more than the actual game to address this you look at photos of it in real life it really does look beige and horrible but this one I mean a super dry Euro suddenly is now a Kenner Spiel out of nowhere I mean who's bigging this up I've not seen anybody talk about this game that highly but then all of a sudden a couple of people have mentioned it and now suddenly it's like oh the best scene ever I don't even remember the uh Dice Tower review giving it that particularly High I'm sure it got a seal of approval because that's C they all do but I don't know I but this is what I'm getting at here this is the most like underwhelming set of games I've seen for the SPI the arish yet yet like I really honestly could not care which one wins each one I would probably want to try Daybreak out of the Ken Spiel more I really don't want to see the I I mean I can't really say hate on the Guild of traveling Merchants but just looking at it it just seems it's going to be boring for me but I really do not want to see ticket toide Legacy win this no way I'll have a fit if they do never care about the children's one and I just don't care about anything in the sparis category there's nothing here I've just got no interest in these Awards this year and at least in previous years there was something I was rooting for but here I'm not rooting for anything I'm rooting for stuff not to win that's not what you want from an award ceremony hell the golden geek Awards gave me more to look forward to than this absolute crazy so yeah we'll see how this goes but yeah don't expect me to go too much on the results when they come through because I just honestly don't care right let's talk a little bit about uh not inventors of South Tigers again we'll talk briefly about a little topic which has come up which um was an interesting response I've had to some reviews I've done lately um where basically when I talk about the balance of certain things in games or the like how some games feel bit more punishing or it's a runaway leader issue particularly a response tends to come back where Defenders of such a game refer to the idea that other players should be doing more active things to stop that player now essentially what that's getting at is similar to a term we call hate drafting now that is specific to a drafting game but basically it can apply to other mechanics as well the idea being that players should be actively doing stuff or taking cards or taking spots to stop other players doing whatever it is they're doing for their engine now there is some truth to that but talking about it from a practical standpoint how often do you actually see it being done remember who you're playing this with you're playing with Euro game players Euro game players are the sort of people who don't really care about multiplayer interaction they're doing their own puzzle they're seeing if they can do their puzzle better than another player which is why some games that are just bom dry abstracted Euros with no interaction at all can be super popular because they just don't care you know they they're playing trasan and they're not fussed about what the other players are doing in the mini games cuz frankly they're doing their own mini games and this is where I kind of stand on this argument I don't think you can use that as a defense because take drafting for example Euro game hate drafting so I'm going to you know terraforming Mars Sushi go Seven Wonders you know where you are taking cards actively to block other players now you know people tried to defend um oh what was it called oh the one where you had multicolored cards and it was meant to be a rival to Seven Wonders it's so d I can't remember what it was called now um you had cards that you could play for basic effects but you could also discard them for resources it had the it had the things in the Middle where you got resources from I can't remember what it was called a French publisher made it it was a really popular drafting game but oh whatever I can't remember I'm sure somebody will point it out in the comments but as I say that game people said well why didn't you take the card that they want well given that you can do pretty much anything with any card to get a resource taking the card from them isn't really going to make a difference but then let's take something like seven wonders so you know one of the uh things that people have a problem with is that if you let somebody get all the science they're likely to win because yeah science can be pretty powerful so they'll say well you should have stopped them getting all the science why me why do I have to do it there's more than just me in this game here but the thing is in order for the idea of hate drafting or I don't know BL hate blocking or whatever you want to call the term in order for that to work in a euro game everybody needs to be on the same page and that never happens in a euro game you know stop one person getting all the science well that's fine I'll when I pass in the direction if I can I'll stop them getting all the science but I've got to think about my own engine as well and most of the time if you stop somebody getting a bunch of points you're messing up your own game but because other players aren't on the same page as you and they're just doing their own thing you actively stopping that player is weakening your own position weakening theirs but then you're just strengthening the other two so where where's your incentive to stop them but I played a game of Seven Wonders with three friends the other the other week and no the other day actually a few days ago and uh one person beat me purely because they were set opposite me it was a four-player game the two neighbors I had kept giving them the well kept giving them the cards they needed but also the person next to me in the last round gave them the three best guilds they could possibly ask for like they scored about 30 something points from the guilds you could see a away that those guilds would give him those many points did he take them from him no because he was trying to get other stuff to do for his own thing why is he going to spend three out of the seven turns he has in around just denying them a guild if they need to get science symbols themselves or if they need to get more culture buildings or if they need to get enough military to stop me attacking them you know they they've got other things to do so why would they go out of their way to deny a person knowing that it's benefiting someone else and this is why you can't use this defense cuz you know other Euro I forget which ones I got this comment on I might have mentioned it in windmill Valley slightly um because when Mill Valley can have a situation because it's not very interactive in terms of what you do in it you could have a situation where you know there are some tiles or cards or upgrades that are stupidly powerful for certain people like the helper cards but the the helper cards are you know that you only have room for six of them are you going to take a helper card that's useless for you out of your six that you can have in the game just to deny somebody the chance to have it why why should I waste one of my few turns in the game to do this when other players are not going to be doing the same you know everybody needs to be working together on that front now there are games like hegemony which do a better job of this you know because everything everything someone does links to what other players are doing so there is more grounds for if somebody's getting way ahead of themselves for all the other players to pitch in and give them a bit of a hard time that's the making of a good game but sorry need a drink throat is getting a bit sore uh but the you know the idea that other people will contribute it's just not going to work and you know I'm trying to think of other game examples where this could be the case but you know we mentioned it with drafting cards I mean terraforming Mars has that you know there's a card that's really good for another player it's a little easier to hate draft in terraform Mars because you don't see that many cards and if you see garbage for yourself then you might as well hate draft somebody else but that's if nothing else is good for you do you do that you don't actively take the card from them if you've got a fantastic card you could be picking for yourself you always take the thing that benefits you more than what you know screws over somebody else but let's take out drafting out of the equation now let's just think about a Euro game for blocking worker placement spots or maybe stopping somebody doing a particular thing with their engine like you know I used this combo in a euro game and it just went out of control and nobody stopped me yeah well some you know the other players should have stopped you they should have taken all the spots you were going to go to what even if it didn't benefit them you know like oh you know you were constantly using this spot in Agricola you know people should have stopped you and done it themselves and it's like well they're doing other things why are they all going to suddenly just pitch in and stop one player when it messes themselves up and even then that would involve every body having to have a discussion and collude with each other in order to make that work otherwise you're just assuming that one person is just going to have their moral compass set to North so that they can jump in and take the hit for the good of the group I don't know that's never going to happen it just sounds ridiculous as I say it so I don't get how that's a a legit defense if the game has runaway leader issues then that's a legit flaw with the game and I don't think you can just easily defend it by saying well it's a player fault it's not a player fault because you are expecting way too much of Euro game players this is not how they act you I will be you we will be playing the Euro game we're doing our own engines we might interact slightly but not necessarily knowingly I mean you know it's like I take a worker placement spot that you wanted well I didn't necessarily know you wanted it but I need it anyway so I've gone there I didn't go there to screw you over I need it for myself but you know you know like oh right I can go to your spot and get some resources that I need gives you a couple of points I shouldn't keep doing that and giving you points but I need the resources otherwise my game sucks so why would I not and even then Euro gamers are just out for themselves it kind of sounds like we're being kind of selfish but maybe in a way in games we kind of are you we we're out trying to progress our own engine we're trying to improve our own Victory Point score we're not out to screw over other players to be nasty or mean that's not what we're like that's why a lot of Euro games aren't punishing or mean in terms of over other players typically it's more you know did you were you not efficient with your own thing now some games are punishing and mean for other players where you do actively get to screw them over on a regular basis the thing is I don't like those games case in point um you know if it loads up barrage cannot stand this garbage Fest of a game but this is a very and punishing one this is where everybody is outright each other over but the thing is this whole game is about outright each other over the whole thing is that you can't be your own thing in this game you have to you know you have to get in each other's way so this is an example where I suppose you could talk in defense of what the arguments here about but that's because the whole game revolves around over each other so everybody is doing this not necessarily an equal measure because obviously there's going to be winner but everybody has to do it so this is how this game works I can't stand this game partially for that reason but uh yeah it's one of those examples where you can say that it may be a fault of the players not screwing over another player because they're expected to do so in this kind of game that's fair enough but these games are few and far between okay um another one that kind of falls into this category which is a game I really actually like a lot more is dominant species specifically in the marine version but I can give a little bit of credit to the original dominant species but this one requires you to be a little bit sort of Dicker to other players because you know when you're you know in this game you're obviously fighting for these territories you're really like killing each other's species you're taking away their food supplies and stuff but everybody is expecting to do this one person can't just do their own thing and not remain unscathed for the whole game the whole game is meant to be pretty interactive so this one works in that regard but typical Euro game as I mentioned like windmill Valley I mean what sort of games I'm trying to remember which ones I've done reviews on where people have mentioned this I know windmill Valley got comments like that uh not unsettled obviously that was a comment was not canvas not earth abundance not Moon raker Moon rakers I think might have got it because people were like well you shouldn't negotiate with this particular player too much if it's going to screw you over I suppose that does work with a negotiation game uh but trying to think what Euro games have I done haven't done that many uh septe maybe did I get no septim's problem was the whole witch trial thing being garbage so that you know that one just doesn't work uh last Light No most people kind of agreed with me that this wasn't that great a game so uh yeah overhyped much uh let's see uh world wonders that could be an example because you could get somebody always get the stuff they want but given how tight the stuff is in selection for the pieces you want you haven't got time to deny somebody what they want when you clearly need to focus on your own thing uh anything else worms span no that didn't really count myth wi no that's not relevant age of Rome that's not particularly relevant either uh I can't remember what sort of stuff they selling maybe it was in relation to like a podcast episode or something i' done where I was kind of talking about this kind of thing but yeah I mean that's that's kind of the way it is I I just think that a lot of games you can't rely on the idea that other players should be stopping another player as a defense for saying that there's balance issues or people should be actively trying to stop the player because you're in you're assuming that Euro players will collaborate on this kind of thing and a lot of Euro games are not designed for that you I am not supposed to be focusing too much on what opponents are doing in a game of you know pulsara 2849 perhaps or uh you know path of civilization maybe uh what else uh Mystic Veil and living Forest actually no living Forest has a little bit more on that front maybe I'll give that one some credit Mystic Veil not really you're collecting your own Cards doing your own deck build you thing lost ruins of arac I mean you know you're racing people to stuff but that's just in progression of your own thing you're not really able to deny somebody the means to make their engine really great great rest and Trail um I mean not really I mean if somebody's doing well with the if I'm doing well with an engine for collecting sheep in New Zealand not a lot you can really do about that I mean you can make my life a little bit annoying by putting lots of tax buildings down but then that affects everybody on the table not just me you can't really go out of your way to screw me over compared to what everyone else does like well they should buy the expensive sheep so you don't get them how if they're not following a Shepherd strategy how are they going to afford the big sheep why would they go out of their way to pay 12 bucks to get one assuming they're even allowed to with the amount of shepherds they've got to deny it doesn't work this whole defense does not work so yeah that's kind of like just some thoughts I had i' interested to know what you have to say I mean you know we've already mentioned games where the dickery of everybody is expected so dominant species and barrage I'm sure there's more examples of this food chain magnate could probably fit in that category um void fall no I don't think void fall would fall in that category because the thing is I tend to win void for by just turtling and uh sitting in my own little corner and doing an Eco game and that tends to win void for for me because everybody else is too busy trying to faf around and shoot at each other and do stuff with all the spaceship battles and I'm just like who cares just sit back here with a big economy and just make points that way and don't get much corruption I'm good so all works well for me uh but you know people might say well somebody should come and attack you and make certain that you can't Turtle up in void for what one person and what are you expecting all the other free players to launch a Combined Assault on me when I'm doing an Eco no they're going to do their own thing so doesn't work in that maybe that was actually maybe void for was one of the ones I was commented on actually but you know I digress so what are you guys thought subie do you actively hate draft or you know hate take or whatever you want I don't know what the term would be if it's not hate drafting but uh do you actively try and block other players knowing that it likely won't help you much but it's more to screw them over is that sort of what you do in Euro like mostly multiplayer solitire Euro games is that kind of how you operate do you hate draft a lot in card games or like seven wonders and that or do you actively just concentrate on your own stuff interested to know your thoughts and see how that goes right my throat is getting very dry quite sore um not because my throat has problems but because I haven't drunk enough of this it keeps sticking to my cup holder so all I'm doing is just constantly ripping that out of the socket but mainly because I haven't drunk enough of this and it's a hot day so my throat is drying out quicker but I got stuff to do I've got a sort out all this Vindication stuff I'm going to have a little uh um look at that Suburbia thing as I mentioned before I'm going to tidy up my sleeves I've got a box full of spares and sleeves I've bought some more so I need to organize that a bit more um I need to go to the gym I need to go shopping I've got a bit of extra time today because we're not playing valheim tonight with the mates cuz uh the host are on holiday but uh yeah so that gives me a good 3 four hours to do other things uh I suppose I got watch Demon Slayer later on yeah so there is that but yeah I've got a lot to sort out today so not the most relaxing day of all but hopefully a productive one nonetheless and I've still got to uh obviously edit and get this one out so No Rest For The Underdogs of the industry yeah so that's it for me on this episode of the broken meat I'll see you on the next show don't forget to like And subscribe don't forget to share it out on social media if you can let me know your comments let's get this uh you know discussion started and until next time I'll see you soon and regardless of whether you consider the word meep be like something worth trademarked or not it's still only a game so I'm still the broken meeple and I hope to be for a long while yet take care bye for now