News & Week In Review - CMON Got Their 19 Million, A New Stonemaier Universe & More!!

0:00 Hey, I'm Alex from BoardGameCo, and today we're going to be doing the news and week in review. We're going to be diving into a bunch of things, our news pieces, the videos of the week, games covered, played, all of those things. But first and most importantly, I'm trying out a new mic. And honestly, while I like the sound quality, the testing part has not been going as well as I'd like. So, um if there is any clipping, I apologize. Also, if it's like super annoying and you can't listen to this video, I appreciate you lasting this long. Uh but hopefully that's not the case. I tested it enough that hopefully it shouldn't be that bad, but we shall see. Anyways, uh with that said, let's go ahead and dive into the news and week in review. But first, a note that this channel is sponsored by you can find a variety of things: board game shelves, tables, playmats, bags, and of course, and most importantly, games. There's a lot of games you can go ahead and check out. Any of those things might be of interest to you, go to allplay.com. With that, we're going to go ahead and dive into our news, our well, the news section of the news and week in review, starting off with uh we have a Great Skyzo here. Great Skyzo from Stonemaier Games. This is part of the um Something and Bones Saga, The Smoking Bones. The Smoking Bones universe created and illustrated by Andrew Bosley from Everdell, Tapestry, etc. Uh I have known that this is kind of loosely in the works for a long time.

1:05 I know Andrew Bosley. I remember like way back at like Dice Tower West, maybe like four years ago. I remember hearing about this universe, uh and I've been waiting for it to show up. And uh we have it finally showing up, Great Skyzo uh with Andrew Bosley art, but also an Andrew Bosley game, which I believe I could be mistaken, but I think that's the first time that's happened. So, uh designer is actually Dan Germain, but the artist and the world building is from Andrew Bosley. So, you can go ahead and check that out. This is a Stonemaier uh new title over here. Then we have next, we have over here, we have we noticed that as not being displayed. Oh my gosh, no, I don't care about that. We have new $500 AI-powered console can create digital tabletop games from scratch. This is an article over on Polygon. I'll link to it down below. But effectively, uh they have a new machine, and it's a Vibe Coded Board Games. I mean, it's more than that. They have like standard board games here. But this is one of those like, you know, you've seen things like this before. It's a console, a digital console acting as a way to play board games. But apparently, you can Vibe Code Board Games in a way that you punch in what you want and it creates it on the spot for you based on your input. I want a party game for three to six players. Well, I guess if you're being specific, do it for the people who are there. I want a party game for the four of us that are here now. One of us does not like dexterity.

2:09 One of us really likes Codenames and the other one likes poker. Go ahead and work with what you will to make that game. The concept in theory sounds good. The problem is like I have such mixed thoughts on AI. I think AI can be incredibly useful and helpful in so many aspects of life. I also think it has a larger conversation here, but larger larger issues in terms of the imbalance of power. Like as much as it might improve our lives on a moment-by-moment basis, it also can, well, depending on who you is, but you might be able to use it for whatever you want that helps you, but it also shifts the balance of power to the people who run these AI things in a way that I'm not quite confident is a good thing. I'm a little nervous about that. But then also there's the other aspect here, which is slop. I I hate the term AI slop, but the concept of it I I do buy into it. The idea that the the ability to create without effort means that so much content gets created that is just junk. Whether it's music, whether it's board games, whether it's rules, art, whatever it is, the more stuff you throw in an algorithm and say put something out, I'm not of the opinion, like there's camps that say you can never have good stuff from AI. I think you could have good stuff from AI, but I think the nature of it is it's all about volume. It's volume over everything else. And so so much stuff, why can't I move the page? Well, so much stuff over here is going to be just created that is just utter junk and you have to weed through more and more junk to find things that are actually worth your time and interest. So I hate everything about this is what my point is. But hey, if it's for you, you can go ahead and check that out. We have news on the Adventures over here. The Adventures, if you check out the Gamefound update, it looks like Top Games is taking over fulfillment of the Adventures. So CMON has managed to offload another title. They are finishing off the fulfillment, and then

3:40 Top Games is going to be taking over the title from there. So it kind of seems like they are finishing the project in exchange for having the IP, which it sounds like a win-win-win for everyone involved. A win for CMON, one less thing they owe, a win for the people who wanted their games, a win for top games depending. Like it is I'm going to do a video on specific titles that have changed hands multiple times, and sometimes not even fulfilling in between changing of hands. Like how many titles has CMON themselves taken on fulfillment of only to go belly up in terms of not belly up, but you know what I'm saying. The the the non-fulfillment aspect of things. Steamforged Games, they've taken on a bunch of things only to like ghost everyone with their stuff. So like it has not been the best situation when a company takes It used to be great news when a company took over of something and promised to get it to you. Now it's like, okay, sure, but like it's been through a multiple hands at this point. Are we actually going to get it or not? Although speaking of CMON, a different news cuz this one's kind of like a someone else has taken over fulfillment, but over here on BoardGameWire, there's an article that they managed to get their $19 million capital raise. So I actually think I talked about I think I talked about this like 2 weeks ago. So ignore this article. This is a old news article, but it is relevant I guess to the extent that they have $19 million of influx coming their way to help with whatever. Like this this campaign, Adventures, they managed to offboard somebody else. Uh but at least this can go towards any other num- numerous campaigns of which there are many, of which many I actually want the games from. And then we have over on BoardGameWire an article on Codenames Party. If you've been on Netflix this past week, you may have seen this, but there's a giant Codenames Party on Netflix's home screen. So you can play Codenames. Codenames apparently has sold like 20 million units. It's like 80% of

5:12 CGE's you know volume, which makes sense. I mean, the sheer amount of of success Codenames has had, the app they've built, the multiple numerous spin-offs and iterations. And now they apparently are not just working with Netflix to bring you Codenames Party, they even developed it as well. So if you're interested in Codenames, and you haven't had a chance to try it out, if you have a Netflix subscription, you can do it. Honestly, Netflix has been pushing their games to me for so long now. I've kind of tuned it out. To me, Netflix is streaming. Netflix is not video games. But I haven't actually tried any of the video games. So like I guess I'm curious. Should I be trying? I mean, this honestly is the biggest push I've gotten as to reason why I should consider trying out Netflix's video games. So, um maybe I'll try it out now with Codenames. I mean, I have the Codenames app, I have Codenames Party, I have Codenames Well, I don't have Codenames Party, I have the Codenames app, and I have all the various versions of Codenames. This might get me to try out Netflix though, just for curiosity's sake, if nothing else. That is what we have for our news, which brings us to uh the videos of the week. Videos of the week, we had a bunch of things. We have the general videos. Uh for those, we had uh games added and being Well, games leaving and being added to the collection video. Uh I made it a two-parter, in fact, I'm debating splitting up the series in general to the games passing through and then the games added and leaving to my collection, cuz they are kind of different things. One's my collection update, others just like, "Here's all the stuff I've covered that isn't sticking around." It's kind of a different conversation, and more and more, the more games I cover, the more that almost becomes the default. Yes, I will review a game, but I assume I'm not going to keep it. Some I will, some will make it, some of that good, and that means others have to leave, but for the most part, most games are going to be played, and whether I like it or I don't like it, they're mostly not sticking around just because of the sheer volume

6:43 of great games out there. Then I also had on Friday upcoming crowdfunding with for the month of October. This is a quick run-through of the various titles of note coming to both Kickstarter and Gamefound for the month of October. A lot of information, like I don't even remember how many campaigns, like 35 for 35, 40 campaigns in around 22, 23 minutes, just to give you a a rundown of the various things that might be tugging at your wallet's heartstrings over the next month. And that brings us to the games covered this past week on the channel. We had a bunch of games. We had a gameplay for Chess Rivals, an upcoming crowdfunding campaign, an interesting take on deck building work replacement, and that's only two of the modes. There's a full other mode, there's a sponsored gameplay. There's a full other world exploration mode that we didn't even have a chance to dive into. There was a sponsored gameplay for Curiosity Killed the Cat. Overall, I liked it. Honestly, my biggest complaint is I think I just like Cosmic Poker more. I think Cosmic Poker to me, like if you watch the video, we're having a lot of fun, and we are having a lot of fun. The game was so much fun to to to film, to play. It's a very solid experience. I think the biggest problem is I think I'd always choose Cosmic Poker over it, even though it is a fun experience. Then there was a multiple things for Primal Legends last week. There was a gameplay, there was an unboxing a bit ago, there was a gameplay this week, there was a review this week.

7:48 Uh Primal Legends overall, again, it's another kind of situation. This one was a little different, though. Uh Primal Legends is great. I like Primal, I love Primal, I like Primal Legends. My biggest concern is I don't think it gives you the depth of the experience that Primal does, but it is good for when I want the experience of Primal without having to like really do all the stuff to get Primal to the table. Overall, I'm coming in at a four out of five. Keep in mind, Primal is a five out of five for me. I love Primal. Primal Legends is a nice entry point to trying things out, but does not give me what I want from Primal Legends. Like I wanted Primal Legends to have more of the depth and the variability that Primal does, just in a smaller box size, and it gave me a lot of what I want, but not everything that I want. There's also a review, not a review, a preview, a sponsored preview for Boss Battle. This is a um I don't have a lot to say on this one. Meg covered this one, so I don't know a lot about it, but this was an older title that they're coming back with a second edition, updated rulebook, and all that. You can check that out on the channel. There was a review of Witching Hour from Post Curious. This is the newest puzzle box series. They have a lot of incredible uh you know, incredible stories, not stories, they're they're they're narrative, they're puzzly, they're escape rooms in a box.

8:48 They are the best escape rooms in a box in the board game space, in my opinion. Uh this one over here was a very solid one, both in terms of the story and the mechanics. Not my favorite, uh that still goes to Mori and Game Factory, but still a very solid one, another four out of five. There was a review for Karl von Linn, which again, I thought was excellent. Honestly, I think the the the pattern for today's videos are almost everything is like, this is a great, but this is better. Uh this is true for Karl von Linn as well. I really enjoyed Karl von Linn. I think I I think it's a very solid game, and ultimately it made me want to spend my time playing more Darwin's Journey. I love Darwin's Journey, I think it's phenomenal. Karl von Linn gave me that taste, but Darwin's Journey is just overall a better experience. Karl von Linn was another four out of five. Great Euro, will never turn down a gameplay of it. I think it's very, very solid. I just rather play Darwin's Journey. And then lastly, what there was a gameplay for Ten, this specifically the third in our series. We had a seller series of games with myself, Meg, and Jenna from the Board Game Garden going through three games of 10 seller. Uh this is the third and final one, so you can check out how things fared, how we each did in our various journeys of the most wild uh 10 uh landscape. There's a lot of 10 going on and there's more coming up this week.

9:51 I really enjoy 10 quite a bit, but that was the final series if you've been watching that. Which brings me to the games played this past week. As usual, this is a small smattering of the games I've played, not everything, but just some of the ones that I'll talk about. Uh we have Radlands. I haven't played Radlands in a good 6 months, I want to say. I think I played it last at Level Up Retreat, if I'm not mistaken, which would be back in March, so I guess maybe 5 months or something. I could be wrong, but I think that's when I played it last. But Radlands is so good, such a great experience. I really enjoy it every time. Uh my daughter started playing it, so I've dove into playing it with her, uh and she's having a lot of fun and enjoying the clever card play, which makes me realize I need to show her Wizards of the Grimoire next. If she likes Radlands, Wizards of the Grimoire is a easy next step to go ahead and dive into, but let's start with a few more games of Radlands. Uh I've been having a lot of fun with it. River of Gold is another older one that I've been diving into. Uh this is the one that I've only ever played on Board Game Arena, so I've had lots of thoughts on it, but never given it a full game play in person. Uh and now I've played it a few times in person, and it's very solid. I it's it's I'm torn. I don't think it's going to be a keeper for me overall. I probably will do a full review at some point. I've held off on doing a full review properly until now because it was only on BGA, so I've given my thoughts, but not like what I thought call a full review. But now that I'm getting more plays in person, there's both a lot of positive.

10:58 I definitely enjoy it more in person than I do just on BGA, I'll say that, no question. Uh but I still think it's one of those games that I'm happy to play, a little less likely to dive into as much, and I'll give you more reasons why when I do a full review. And then we have The Happiest Cat in the World. This is one that I actually only played on BGA so far. Uh I might get a copy at some point, I'm not sure. I both think it's very clever and well done, while also thinking that again, the usual problem with so many board games, I don't know if it's enough to stand out in such a crowded space. It's got a lot of cuteness, a lot of charm, some uh definitely definitely some tight strategic game play decisions, but I think I'd rather play other games that are doing things like that, but we'll see. More plays are needed, and we'll see how those go. And that brings us to today. Today we're going to have a few videos going up. We're going to have a preview of Nakasendo and Essen release, as well as a five things I love, hate, and want to see from Tend. This is more Tend content. It is the second last Tend thing you're going to see from me, at least until the campaign ends, because that brings us to next week I will have a Tend Hive solo gameplay going up on Sunday. On my solo Sunday I was diving into a Tend Hive situation cuz I have not done that solo yet. At some point I need to do a Tend seller solo, but we'll save that for another time. And then later this week we're going to have Essen videos. This is finally getting to the, you know, a two and a half weeks, three weeks from Essen. I guess three weeks. Three weeks from Essen at this point. So I will be finally starting to dive into the various Essen videos that will be going up. I have like three or four of them planned. Just a variety of games I love to see, games I have I want to try at Essen, games I recommended at Essen, expansions at Essen. All those usual things will be going up over the next few weeks. And with that, that brings us to the games on the table. As usual, these are games I hope to be, you know, getting tabled over the next, you

12:28 know, few days, honestly, cuz I'm only here I'm only in town for a few days. I'm going to Comic-Con for the first time ever. So we'll see. I've never gone to a Comic-Con. I've gone to a lot of conventions, never gone to a Comic-Con. That's going to be Wednesday. So until Wednesday I have this these to get played. I I want to dive into Nemesis Legacy. This is hopefully planned for tomorrow. I have not finished the rules yet, so we'll see how that goes. We have the Seekers, an upcoming game from Off the Page Games. We have Regicide Legacy, which hopefully I'm playing tonight. I have read the rules on that. And then we have G.I. Joe Operation Cobra, which this one might be might be soon. It might be I might This one could might get pushed off to later in the week. We'll see. This is the least likely of these to get tabled, but we'll see how things go. That's basically it. Until next time, I'm Alex Radcliffe from Board Game Co. I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you have an excellent week. And as always, I hope you have a good one.