The IT'S LIVE Live Show - June 24, 2020 - Should Be A Piece Of Cake

0:18 hey everyone welcome to the it's live live show my name is Rodney Smith and I'm so glad you're here oh boy I am uh it's another live show I know it's a live show because I'm in like a sweat before it starts every time uh you know I had some questions that people had uh provided beforehand and I couldn't find the USB stick in time but here we are it's happening it's live and I'm happy to be here and now it's all uphill from this point on everything's going to work super smooth so thanks for joining me let me run through a couple of things that I always like to do at the top of the live show which is tell you when the next live show is going to be this is my way of convincing myself to keep doing this by committing to the next one so the next one we try to do this every second Wednesday the next one is scheduled for July 8th at 7:30 ET eastern time so just like now but you know two weeks from now um and also if you're ever unsure if it's a week for a live show because sometimes I might make adjustments to the schedule you can find our schedule on watchitplayed dotv and you'll see our schedule sort of for the whole month it's been an interesting experiment trying to have a schedule for the month we sort of hit most of the things in there but not not always but I try I really try oh yes and if you'd like to ask a question during the live show because we will be doing questions and answers you can do that by posing your question using this format that says question put question in all caps and then after that put your question that way we can find your questions a little bit easier when we're

1:48 trying to find them to try to answer them okay so that is that's your homework you got to do that oh and I'm going to share a couple of things with you let me see I'm going to see if I can get set up to show you I had a a couple of quick pieces of news to share with you so I want to let you know that the virtual gaming con is going on right now it's running from June 24th to 28 this is a collaboration between Board Game Geek and the dice tower to create a virtual convention for people so there's not like a physical space you go to it's it's virtual it's right in the title so if you go to boardgamegeek.com VGC you'll get kind of the overview here of of what the convention is I really should put the link to this in the description of the video I will do that afterwards uh and if you go to boardgamegeek.com slive you can actually see their live streaming that's going on right now as well and they have a whole program events throughout the day um I mean I guess you could go watch it now if you wanted to but I'd be happy if you stuck around here and maybe go see it after the fact you know it's it's your life though do it do what you want to do but yeah that is the um that is what's going on with the virtual gaming convention I haven't been paying a lot of attention to it I do some collaborative work with board game geek but June has been so busy uh there wasn't no way for me to fit in a virtual convention on top of everything else so I hope to check a few things out though during it there's all kinds of like places you can go game with other people tabletopia has I think made all of their premium Games available for free I look there's a

3:18 website there you should check it out for the details but it's a way to find people I think there's Discord channels as well you can connect to people on find players who want to play games that you want to play and play them so that sounds fun right um when else do I want to tell you oh the other thing we have to do is we have a wonderful sponsor for the show and it is uh board game arena so let me uh take you over here because I got something really cool that I want to show you from board game arena and thanks to them again for helping to sponsor the live show downforce is now available to play as a beta all right and last time in the live show I showed you a game uh what was it potion explosion and they had a tutorial video there and when I clicked on it it wasn't watch it played it was uh lovely Ivan Van Norman from Geek and sry but this time you can see you can see here it does say how to play by watch it played so they've got a video explanation if you don't know how to play you can come here and you can click on the link and okay uh error occurred please try again all right so it looks like maybe the the link for the video for the watch plate isn't um I'm not going to take this personal it's it's look mistakes happen uh sure they'll they'll figure it out some other time but this is a really cool game and uh you can go here let me see let me show you can I go in here I'm so flustered Now where's the oh you can see the game in action here we go see the

4:49 game in action and you can see they have the the map here for you to drive around on with the cars and the game starts with the auction and all that sort of thing so board game arena is a place you can come and you can play games for free you sign up you get a an account and then you can hook up with other people and play from all around the world they have four different tracks for downforce here and I think you can play up to six players so pretty cool and uh you know look uh you could just go to the you know the YouTube page uh and find the downforce video that way so yeah okay well we'll figure figure all that out so uh I have questions that have been sent in in advance for the live show if you want to go to our watch it played BGG Guild you will find you usually I'll have a thread going there before the live show to let people ask questions in advance maybe people who won't be there during the live show or just to give us an idea of some of the questions we might want to answer in advance I have one question that came in here from Amanda Panda it says you can flip a box but can you flip a cake so the reason why I wanted to show this uh question is because this is an example of the kind of questions I don't want during the live show this is a silly question and what I want during the live show is serious kind of gaming conversations to happen between us and this is Amanda this is this is just uh it's silly frankly and i' I'd rather we didn't get questions like that on the live show so oh what is that I'm I'm hearing the it's live live show Callin phone here just one second I got to it's it's it's new technology I have to put these little headphones on uh first let

6:20 me just see uh who it might be um hello hello hi Rodney hello hi is this M loves War Games it is oh you're your your face is very tiny sorry just one second it's it's the the technology of the phone is I mean you're I'm coming all the way from Australia it's everything is shiny here yeah there's one like private view here hold on let me let me let me get see if I can get more of you here okay this is a little better a little better I'm I'm going to make some quick adjustments on the Fly oh yeah this is better you areen calling from Australia oh my goodness I am okay well this is and I was watching and I heard you were hoping for some serious conversation thank you so much this is this is what I needed Ella I needed someone to call and have some serious conversation with me so thank you thank you so what what kind of serious conversation would you like to have well I would seriously like you to flip a cake how about that okay so you want me to flip a cake too yes flip that cake flip that cake you're not helping look look you're calling from Australia this is a longdistance phone this must be costing you a ton of money uh here let me just put you on speakers so I don't have to hold this to my ear anymore because that's how this works um so hold on the only problem though you see is I don't have I don't have a cake so I can't I can't flip a cake if I don't have a cake oh wait hold on some someone's brought a cake someone's brought a happy Canada a

7:52 cake it's a little early premature so I guess I could flip a cake is this what we're gonna do I guess we're gonna we're gonna see if I can flip a cake yeah all right okay well here's the deal if we're going to do this we gotta we got to be serious about this gotta find some way to make this serious it here's what we're gonna do we're going to have uh we'll do a little poll we're going to have a poll run it's actually going to go live on the channel in about three minutes over on the community tab for watch it play Let me let me just bounce over here for a second ell you just hang tight I'm going to show everybody kind of how the uh Community hang yeah how the community tab works let me uh just bring that up for a second here okay everyone so if you go to the watch it played page uh you should be able you know if you're at the homepage that's fine that's here but if you click over on community you will find a poll here it's not here yet maybe I can maybe I can post it now let's see edit maybe I can I don't know I've never done this before uh I I can't seem to it'll go live in a couple minutes anyway there'll be a poll here that asks can Rodney catch a flipped cake and you'll either vote Yes if he can flip a box he can flip a cake or that cake is going to be on the floor no question so whichever one you vote for is fine although I'll be monitoring to see where these votes end up to be sure but here's what I'd like to do I would like to do a little

9:23 fundraiser so this is a a fundraiser here a charity campaign uh to support the Gord dowy and chenny WJ fund chenny was a was a young boy who was put through the uh Canadian residential school system this was uh an unfortunate program frankly that was that was started in Canada to try to integrate the indigenous people into Euro European Canadian culture and a lot of kids were taken from their families and this is a kid who escaped from the residential school and was trying to get home which was like 600 I don't know 600 km away and unfortunately he died and so this this is a uh fundraiser has been created to help support and bring awareness to some of the the damage that's been done to these families that still exist today so what I'm going to do is every vote we get whether yay or nay for every vote we get I'm going to donate a dollar to this fund at the end so go in there and vote Yes or no if you think I can flip this cake will support a good charity and hopefully hopefully you will see me catching a cake by the time we're all done with this I don't I don't know but um let me bring uh Ella back here there you are there you are okay Ella what do you think do you think I can flip a cake even if you don't and it goes on your face that would be great you're ENT you think it's good either way if I catch it it's great if I don't catch it it's great well I appreciate that I'm going to put the cake away for a moment just so I don't accidentally eat it and then we won't have one to uh to flip but Ella thank you so much for for coming by it is you are in Australia I'm in Canada our time zones are very different um

10:55 what time is it right there if you don't mind me asking right now it's I'll tell you it's it's 8:44 p.m. here what time is it there it's 9:44 a.m. okay so we're on opposite sides of the time zones for sure wow yep well for anyone who doesn't anyone who doesn't know Ella is uh she's a contributor on man versus maple she's uh also uh co-host on variable player power and you have your own YouTube channel Ella loves board games and I I was kind of curious Ella what is it that kind of motivated you to get started like what made you want to do this uh it was just a passion for it and encouragement from friends I remember because I went from like zero to 300 games and then my friends were like you're so you're crazy I think that's a common story for people yeah yeah it's a lot of us we're all the same creature but yeah so and then they encouraged me to go like my friends encouraged me to go on Instagram and then that wasn't enough like I felt I needed to do more and so I went to conventions and then I found out about content creators who make like YouTube videos um the first that was um it was R and you that I watch I'm like oh I can do that I have a background in communication I think I can do it and I felt like um I had a I guess a unique voice not not a lot of women do content so I'm like oh I could give something to the table that's not there right and yeah and so have you and now I'm here with you that's right it's awesome so what do what sort of keeps

12:27 you wanting to do it because like I said you you've now like along with your Instagram and and your own YouTube channel you've been expanding now you're doing a podcast as well it is there something that sort of continued to inspire you I'm assuming at a certain point like I know for myself certainly I love the board games uh but I don't have to make videos about them necessarily I could just play them uh but some you know for me there was something else that was kind of pulling me do you feel like there's still something that kind of drives you to keep doing it and wanting to keep doing it yeah um I do get burned out and then I always go back cuz I talk to my friends Danny and Theo and we're really here to grow the community and we want to have people who look like us um be seen on YouTube because it's it seems like it does I don't want to like like Pat myself on the back but people have said it makes a difference seeing somebody who looks like you doing these things so that's what drives me really like above everything else cuz I could just be playing games right now well I think I think that's really valuable though what what you you hit on there is that that the motivation to keep doing it has to come generally from something else if you're just doing it for I don't know free games or because board games are fun that burnout could just cause you to not want to do it anymore but if you have something that's sort of deep inside of you like you were saying like I want people to be able to watch the videos I'm making and see themselves in me and you know if you don't feel like you're represented in the community the same way then that's like a powerful motivation that will make you go you know what I'm not necessarily feeling like it today but somebody else might benefit or want to see this you know

13:59 again not to make ourselves Heroes but it's it's it's not about that it's about finding a thing inside of yourself right to connect with I know for me like a lot of my motivation is that I've seen a number of people pick up a board game and they open the rule book and they just get frustrated and they feel like board games are too complicated and it's like who wants to do all this work and I just thought well maybe I can help lower the barrier to entry and sometimes when I get those responses with comments of like oh this was really helpful I couldn't figure out this game but now I watched the video and it was helpful uh that's motiv right that's the thing that will get me down here uh wanting to do this I don't I don't know that it necessarily explains why I want to flip a cake but but other elements because your community wants you to flip a cake you follow what the community wants well that is that is true too and I mean that's a big part of it right is there's a you know we're part of the board game community and there's a lot of fun and energy that can come from that too right um absolutely as the dice to you know infamously says uh you know it's not just about the games it's the people who play them right and that's that's something I think motivates a lot of us but um well cool I was it was interesting to hear and maybe you could let people know we we'll mention again at the end if people do want to find you Ella outside of this video where else can they find you so they can find me on Instagram at LL of sport games Facebook L same thing at L loves board games LBG on Twitter and YouTube is the same thing I actually am not a contributor anymore to Man versus me I just want to oh thank you thanks for letting me know yeah but yeah so it's me and there's GNA be some

15:29 news after but I can't say it ex okay we won't spoil anything here we'll wait for for your good news but we do have some other questions let me just make sure I'm I'm on track here with with the questions right I do have a question here this is one that came in from Brandon Gilmore who asked do you think digital board games and tabletop simulators will take off this year with virtual gaming cons and quarantine so because of covid-19 and the fact that we're not able to travel as easily do we think the digital board games and again like table simulator that sort of stuff is that going to take off become more popular I mean it seems like it can't help but make it more popular what have you seen that way I think it already has because I remember just a few months ago you couldn't get on board game arena or it's it was crashing all the time because everybody was on it and even in my work because I do because I work for a distributor so a big distributor here we had a 400% increase in sales wow that's like yeah better than any Christmas we've ever had and that trickles over to yeah to tabletop simulator to all the digital yeah apps it's just it's booming so much that we can't keep up yeah because that's the other part of the passion right is that we want to play the games and it's not as easy right now so people will where there's a will there's a way right people will find other ways and some of these digital formats I think some people in the past were like H I want to play my my physical copies I think some of those people are being won over not necessarily because they prefer the digital to the to the physical but if

17:00 they can't then this is a a fine alternative and board game arena you can get on it now but it's not because there's fewer people it's because they had to increase the the capacity of their servers right absolutely it's same for everything even the Obscure websites I remember like the Euros I went to I forgot the name but yeah everybody was on it there were only five now there's like a 100 something like that it's it's really exploded and I I I'd forgotten about the fact that you working with the distributor too so you have like some nice hard data there right that shows 100% yeah wow games and puzzles a lot of people are into puzzles too sold out yeah I've been seeing that have you do you do puzzles at all does that interest you I do but then there only there's only so much time in that day true true we have enough obsessions don't we I have actually speaking of obsessions I have the another question I have here um is from Jesse radav who wanted to know do you actually buy games so I believe what Jesse's getting at there really is you know we as you mentioned we're we content creators we make videos about board games sometimes that means that Publishers will send us games uh for featuring on our channels so the question is do we still buy board games I think is what Jesse's getting at there what about you do you still buy board games I do actually because it when you receive a review copy the pressure not that it's a pressure the pressure that comes with that is creating content and sometimes I just want to play games and I don't want to have that um yeah pressure so I do I do still buy a lot of board games especially like older ones because I was

18:31 late into the Hobbies so I I came in like two three years ago so I'm still buying like the older ones like Brugge and dogs of war so there are a lot of games that I'm hunting so that I get them Dogs of War I have that over my shelf that is a fantastic game the best it's so good it's really good and it's it's one that when it came out I don't think it made the Big Splash that a lot of coolman or not games I call it coolman or not because that's what they were called back then but come on games uh it sort of came out to not a lot of fanfare but then I played I was like this is really good I think it just didn't look like it didn't look like the kind of game that they usually put out I think at the time and that's maybe maybe why and it wasn't it one of their first kickstarters so maybe they were just trying to get think you I think it was maybe their second or third it was like after the zombie side I think and a couple of those big which were people were just used to seeing like tons of armies and Miniatures and and so this was a Euro game it was it just felt different I think for a lot of people and great min though I don't know it sure did yeah I know for myself I still buy a lot of games I just bought U the latest expansion well not the latest expansion for man Mansions of Madness but the one uh where it's like on trains and moving vehicles and stuff uh because I didn't have that one yet and uh no I buy games quite frequently uh because the I primarily do tutorial videos right so I I don't get tons of games I get games that I'm going to be working on so there's still lots of other things outside of the games I'm able to work on that I'm curious about and I I buy those to play too actually there I will say though I got this there's a game over here speaking of kind of fun little

20:03 perks cuz there are some fun perks to be sure I got this Beast of of a game I don't know if you've seen this one this one here Monumental this one's actually currently on Kickstarter right now I think it's only a you can't even barely see me over the actual I know it's this is one's currently on Kickstarter I think right now from fun Forge because I think it's like a Kickstarter only and I can kind of appreciate that it's it's just like tons of speaking of Miniatures this was like almost like your classic kind of cool Min you're not type of deal because like oh W like it's it's a ton ton of Miniatures are you painting all of that no no there's no chance there's no chance uh I still I do paint occasionally but like very in small spurts I get really motivated to PL paint something by Games Workshop and I'll do it for like a couple of days and then then I won't for a long while do you paint miniatures uh my son does and I help him a little bit I do want to cuz I got those Miniatures for gloom Haven the jaws of the lion and I think I can do four I think that's um manageable yeah it's funny to say that because I thought the same thing with jaws of the lion I thought this would this is such a great kind of starter for someone because okay you're going to sit here going to play a campaign so you're going to be with these miniat for a while there's just for it you really just have to paint the one you're going to play with necessarily right so yes um let me see the I do solo so that's right that's true if you're doing Solo exactly for two um let's go to some viewer

21:34 questions you get some time to to stay with me here for some viewer questions I hope so because I you want to stick around for the the cake flip right plus it's the morning I'm actually really awake you're the one who's I don't know what's gonna happen with you Rodney I know I know um okay let's answer a couple questions and then you and I have a little game we can play with the audience that we talked about doing so that'll be fun okay so uh Coral would like to know what's your favorite way to celebrate Canada day I'm going to be very curious to hear your answer to this one Ella what will you do this year so Canada Day uh is in July um what's my favorite way to celebrate well I uh like a lot of people I enjoy fireworks so usually some fireworks is fun either to go to them or um because we live in kind of a more rural area sometimes people neighbors will have some fireworks we'll go to friends houses and and fires them off that way but um mainly just taking a break I I don't have like any kind of crazy awesome tradition I don't normally for example buy a happy Canada Day cake so uh is there an Australia Day Ella that we need to know about yeah there is um so fairly the same thing like we have fireworks uh we do a lot of drinking in Australia where we like our beers so yeah a lot of drinking but with my family we usually go like to because there's tons of stuff in the city that happens so lots of little events we go together and then just celebrate going to museums and seeing all the history and things like that that's love I love that idea of going to a museum what a

23:04 perfect thing to do on your national holiday that is good I like that I like going to museums I don't get to museums very often but I'm one of those people like I like to slowly walk through read all the plaques you know and kind of and just take it all yeah yeah that's very cool we got another question I think this one might also be from coralu asking what is your favorite dessert seems appropriate uh my favorite dessert isn't cake do you have a favorite dessert Ella yeah I don't know if it's dessert but Boba te Boba te I that's dessert right it's sweet so that's my favorite yeah I've been having it three times a week it's not good 10 pounds already well clearly that is your favorite dessert though you you sort of proved it uh I'm trying to think what's my favorite dessert I look my mother's apple pie that's absolutely my favorite dessert that's a good answer good answer I mean it's the best that's such a Ry answer too well it is I mean and like like lots of mothers make apple pie but no one makes it look my mother and my mother-in-law both make fantastic apple pie and I'm not just saying that to appease my mother-in-law it's true all right uh Fon asks are you looking forward to the Atlantic provinces travel bubble to escape Pei so the question there right around co uh they're relaxing some of the rules right to leave Prince right so I'm sure there's probably similar things where you are too Ella what's what's the co situation in Australia right now um so we relaxed a bit but then it's back because there was a a spike so yeah

24:36 we still can go to each other's houses it's not as bad actually because I just saw the stats in the US it's not as bad it's not as bad so we're pretty good I over here you know the question was asking am I looking forward to the bubble relaxing I mean not really what I'm looking forward to is a vaccine that's what I'd like to see uh get us a vaccine and then then then come talk to me about how much I want to be traveling at that point um yeah but but Prince Island where I live they're keeping a pretty close eye on things thankfully right now there's no cases they've relaxed some things but you know hopefully they'll keep testing and keeping an eye on it in case things Spike again so well shorty danc is an interesting question here I don't know if I've ever been asked this before so I always like these kind of unique questions how do you define when a game feels dated like older you know like kind of out of you know sometimes you play a game and it feels very fresh and new and sometimes you play when you go oh this is like a this feels like an old Euro um oh goodness that's a tough question you know I'll tell I'll say a couple of things that I think are maybe kind of the obvious answers but I I know this isn't going to cover all of it but sometimes I'm playing a game it might even be a very new one and it might have something like player elimination and I and I'll feel like oh this feels a little dated cuz a lot of games try to avoid that these days you know especially if it's a long game or if it's a very a long playing game but there's tons of Randomness in it that will often feel dated to me because I

26:06 feel like modern board games are about giving the players choices and agency and and more control now that's not always the case um Amari ail made a very had a very interesting uh blog post I think it was on medium talking about Randomness in games and having a very different perspective on that personally I need to find the link to that and share because I I saw uh Cole Worley talking about that and I thought it was like a really uh fascinating article it was really good talking about how random this from your perspective where you know your where your your lived experience in in life things being random and not being in control of all of your choices might actually be more reflective of what your life is like and so when you encounter it in a game it doesn't feel like the game's cheating it feels like no this is what a person would expect um and you have a higher tolerance for it yes you have a higher tolerance for it than maybe someone who feels like well no I don't I don't I want everything just be fair for me you know when not everyone feels that way uh so I thought that was kind of an interesting article but like I don't I mean artwork will sometimes do it you know I'll see something and it feels like the artwork is dated in the sense that right now it feels like every game has to look you know like this it has to have beautiful absolutely artwork um and that's one hey can you think of anything that makes a game feel dated the way it's written also like because the rule books are so good now there's that's a good point like if I I

27:38 read the old like even if I read a really old war game even the war games are written better so like reading Twilight Struggle is a old game right I imagine that if they wrote it now they would have written it a bit differently I would hope so but I don't know Ella there those GMT War G they are sticking to their old format of 3.2.5 section A you know but oh but I've seen the more modern ones they're getting better it's more like it's different now I think that's it yeah that's a good one that's a great great question shorted answer I you know it's the sort of thing I think a person could dedicate like a full conversation to you go away kind of think about that how do we classify games that feel dated I think a lot of it comes in the mechanisms but good question Dave zic asks when you were a kid what did you want to be when you grew up oh my goodness uh you know it's funny I don't know if I've ever been asked that question but it feels like one of those questions that you You' could asked a lot so interesting one Dave when I was younger I wanted to be a firefighter like when I was really young I wanted to be a basketball player a professional basketball player uh then I wanted to be in an Acappella group thank goodness no I just wanted to be in one anyone who take me oh I love Boys to Men Thank goodness I I that never Pur that I would have been terrible uh do do you know do you have have any memory of what you wanted to be when you were younger oh yeah an actress uh a Broadway musical so very specific I want but I

29:09 didn't have the voice for it so it's sad yeah it's funny I wish it's funny you mention that I I remember when I was in junior high high school I had that kind of fantasy not that's the same one because I wasn't so specific as Broadway but I remember thinking Fantasy around FY Broadway I just like you know maybe I could go to Vancouver which is a big area for for Film Production in Canada and I could just volunteer and work on sets like for almost no pay I'd find a way and you know just you know impress people with my stick todness and maybe be able to work my way up because I always liked working in video but from an amateur perspective and I couldn't figure how would I ever go into that for a living because I never believed it was a sensible uh career path because I grew up with I grew up with this mentality of I have to go get a practical job that will earn practical money you know and then maybe if I make enough money I can kind of do what I want at that point but then I realized no your job is your life you know that becomes everything so or your career right yeah so well I'm I'm Asian so I can relate like my parents were like you're going to be an engineer or a doctor so I never really entertained Arts but now sort of we're like in the Arts we I guess so so it happened Rodney gu I'm just not singing but it's happening and I didn't have to go to Vancouver yeah and you're not on on a stage yet but who knows you know it can still happening know yeah we're still young Rodney okay so we got a question here

30:40 from games of fire who says hi Rodney I'm gonna live stream for the first time tomorrow afternoon any advice well Ella have you ever done any live streaming yourself that you've run as opposed to being like a part of no cuz I don't want to be sweating cuz I'm so just watching you earlier I was anxious but I have been part I've streamed some of my games but there's always something that goes wrong and that doesn't just thinking about is making me sweat it's true Ella Ella did get to see me in raw raw form there because often times when I come into the live show I'm like okay everybody look it's you know I I sometimes can be a little flustered but I was like running around here in a panic uh and you get to see that I apologize for that my my biggest piece of advice if you're going to live stream tomorrow afternoon is test test test test test test test everything um even here Ella and I were tested last night for yesterday morning and still like you saw when Ella joined in the Box was wrong sized and there was there was some weird stuff that happened there things are going to go wrong you got to kind of just roll with it but you should test and try to eliminate as many things as as possible and the other thing is um know that things are going to go wrong anyway and again just kind of roll with it U I think that's that's the best thing and I think people genuinely look the audience is watching they can confirm or deny this uh authenticity is a is a big deal so like if something's going wrong just own it fall on your sword a little bit recover and try again next time and also give yourself a lot

32:11 of time beforehand if you're planning to go live stream and like uh tomorrow at 3 p.m. don't start getting set up at 2:30 you you you will not enjoy that experience I wouldn't all right so here's a question from Kevin who asks uh who have you been doing most of your playing with these days so Ella what about you uh who are you playing games with these days I actually have a regular game night on Thursday we do it like um digitally we're playing kings dilemma so I'm playing kings dilemma with a lot of friends so I still play with friends I my husband is not a big gamer but I play I force him okay yeah yeah I do encourage my family to play with me as well I mean they are the closest ones here to me and they're they're often good sports I don't have to to do too much uh you know begging and pleading um sometimes I will if it's a game that I don't know if it's one they'd like but I sort of just desperately need to get it played you know but um I totally understand so for me it is my family that's exclusively I play with my family and occasionally sometimes a game online uh Mr trixa asks what's Ella's favorite Australia themed game do you do you have a favorite Australia themed game I do and it's named Australia oh that's a game by Martin Wallace so it it's really good so you're it's really weird mix cuz you're battling cthulu but you're like in in a farm like Farmland so it's a mix of real and unreal so and it has like

33:41 his multi-use cards and that's always I I have it over there on the Shelf I haven't played it yet I have a list of my games that unplayed and I've got it down to about 15 so it's pretty good right but I'm having trouble getting those last 15 so that's when you think I should give a give a shot soon yeah I think you like Martin Wallace right I do I like Martin Wallace a lot um you would love it it's a very Martin Wallace game it's very quirky it's different it's not anything that you've seen before so I think it'd like it okay well actually this is a great Segway speaking of Australia speaking of games we've got a little game that we can play right here with the audience everyone who's watching at home please feel free to play along what I thought would be fun is for you and I to both come up with a little list of sayings from our countries and I'll like for example I'll read out one of mine and see if you can figure out what it means and everyone who's watching you try to figure it as well feel free to put it in the comments your guesses as to what you think the expression stands for means and when I read mine I'll give you a shot to try to figure out what it is and then Ella you can read out uh one of the Australian sayings and I'll see if I can figure out what it is I don't expect to get any of them right because even looking at like some of these Canadian ones I'm like how would anyone know what what any of this means but but we'll see we'll see I wonder how what's that weird they are compared I wonder how far like are they similar to ours I don't know we we have the same Queen Rodney remember that's true good point why don't you go first you're the guest why don't you you hit me with uh one of your phrases ah how about this

35:14 I'll give you an easy one uh mates rate did you say mates rate mates rate oh like r a t e yes okay so I would and then M yeah mat R got it got it um my assumption like mate like a friend so a mate's rate would be like hey I'm going to give you a deal like as a buddy here's the here's the rate for you yeah sweet well thank you that's so nice I feel like I feel really bad now because I did not give pick any easy ones for you well maybe maybe not okay maybe not this one might be wait until you see my other one okay you still got time to get me back how about this one I don't know how common this one is maybe in the US this is a common one but fill your boots is that one mean anything if I said go ahead and fill your boots fill your me I could I would think like work hard or do you best your boots yeah no so fill your boots um I almost want to give a second for people in the comments to see if anyone's got it I'm sure some of the Canadians will have gotten it but fill your boots is sort of like um you know go ahead and help yourself go ahead and take what you want like if hey is is uh anyone else going to finish this cake you got to go ahead fill your boots I don't I'd love to know the origin of that story like why filling your boots means help yourself to cake why fill your boots your boots people drank from their boot I guess I would think like fill your boots mean put your boots on and get going you know if anything fill your boots like get out of here put your put your feet in yeah I

36:45 guess yeah all right what do you got for me okay this one is um it's gone Walkabout gone Walkabout okay gone walk about okay uh Gone walk about what it's gone walk yeah so would it be like it's gone Walkabout mhm oh okay so then I that was a little bit of a hint I think so would that be like if you lose something you're so good oh excellent it's it's gone for a walk it's disappear if you hadn't said it's I I might have that you helped me again you're very kind you're good good guest I'm gonna have to have you back on so yeah so it's gone for a walk about it's sort of left and taken off somewhere you've lost something yeah okay okay all right I've got one here for you this one this one might actually be not not too bad um here I'll put this I'll put this in a phrase so so you might you might ask this question uh do we have any cereal left I I'm gonna have it for bed lunch oh my God bed lunch yeah bed lunch can you does if you have any cereal left I'm I'm looking for some bed lunch bed lunch are you eating in bed is that yeah that's basic so it's it's the it's the snack you might have before bedtime okay so close maybe a kid going to bed at night you might okay have a have a little little something for bed lunch a little little snack

38:15 okay all right so what do you got for me okay um to right to right like t o o h two right I mean I'm not giving Clues I know that's right very smart very clever uh okay to right well I guess like is that like sort of affirming like oh that's to right like that's so right like absolutely correct is that the idea yes that's it okay too right definitely yeah let me see if I have anything like that on here um well here's here's one I don't know if this one is is more common I'm not surprised it isn't but if I said uh why don't you come on round for a twofer a twofer a twof for so it's a two for one so a TW for one so do something and do something else oh that's great that's no it's not it's not it but I like the way I like the way you're thinking no so a twofer is is short for two four and 24 beer in a case so it's like come on over for some beer a twofer some beer cuz I got a got a case of 24 beer basically so that's a coming for a ER twofer I remember this when I go to Canada just ask for a twofer if you ask for a twofer they'd be like oh you're going to have a quite a quite a party tonight then yeah this one this one might be a bit harder for you how about Fair Dinkum Fair Dinkum that is

39:47 trickier nothing like immediately used it's actually used a lot is some of this are like we don't use this but this one is like fair fair ding you could see it on the news Fair Dingle mate Fair dink mate so just want a fair dink I Fair okay so I hear fair I mean Dinkum means nothing to me but fair I think is like good or honest uh so like is would that be like an honest person it it means like yes it true real genuine yes you're pretty good with context clues Bry I would think that you can you give me an example where you might use that like like a the thing that would happen that you would then say fair Dinkum too yeah so we were talking like oh I've been tired all week because I've been doing this ah Fair Dinkum so like yeah right kind ofir right right I like that I like that one I Wrong they'll kill me all thatr be like no that's a good one austral I like that one yeah okay I've got um I got two more I'll give you uh this one this is a combination of two things so my someone might say uh hey you going to Timmy's so Timmy is the first one get me a double double double double you're going to double double double shot double shot of something yeah like a double shot of a drink so it is a drink something that would go in a drink so you dou dou you

41:18 were drinking something earlier uh you have a cup there with you right it's got I think tea in it you said to me off screen yes but later you're going to have some coffee right yes so what might you put double Shar coffee so it's a double it's a double sugar double cream oh my goodness so yes that would be Canadian thing that's so sweet it's so it's super common like you you and Timmy's is is short for Tim Horton's which is a popular coffee chain here so if you were rolling up to the the window you'd say can I get a coffee double make it a double double or if you just said can I have a double double they would know you mean a coffee coffee and then two you know two two sugar two cream sugar cream oh my goodness okay I'll give you this one this is um this this will be hard I hope you're too good blls dust what was this blls dust bull dust bull yeah or bul dust bull dust dust okay bul dust oh this one's not easy uh no bul dust it's not like a it's not like a fart is it I'm just thinking about like a a bll I don't know why I thought of that just I just swung for it what what is it it's rubbish oh rubbish okay okay yeah that's old dust rubbish interesting all right I guess I should have the last one because you you started this one off um I got I got two to pick from here what will I pick okay if I said talk of dirt coming there good can you yeah there's

42:51 there's talk of dirt coming do you have any idea there's St something bad happening yeah it is a it's it's a weather related thing so if you say talk of dirt coming means uh it's not like it's not like rain or or snow or sunshine it's like something something bad like real bad weather yeah really bad weather like bad enough that the dirt's flying up you know like the farts yeah like the farts there you go yes exactly fill your boots and get out of here all right so well I'm I'll be curious to go through the comments afterwards and see if anyone listening was able to figure out some of these as well so that was uh thanks for coming up being game for that Ella because I figured I'd learn a few things along along the way there oh guess what it's time it's time to see if Rodney can flip a cake yes okay first of all let me um let me go over to uh everyone just hang on for one quick second I'm going to go over to the community tab just to see how the vote ended up and I'm going to show you as well once I have it together and on screen uh oh yeah I actually saved myself a bookmark for it so that will make it easier all right so let me bring that over okay everyone let's see what we've got here we've got first of all we got 145 votes thank you everyone for voting that is going to be $145 going to our charity tonight so thank you everybody for voting and

44:24 amazingly it is a 56% quot that says if he can flip a box he can flip a cake and 44% who I think are actually probably more accurate are saying nope that cake is going to end up on the floor no question so I guess it's time for us to find out which is true uh so Ella you're not going to be on screen during the cake flip but I'm going to make sure the camera is turned around so you can you can yeah you you want to watch I know so I'm going to turn sorry everybody you have to get a look at my uh my stomach for a moment while I get Ella set up here and then I'm going to head over to the the cake area okay oh boy so flipping a cake so flipping a a box is uh is definitely a different kind of animal right cuz normally I pick the Box up off the shelf I twirl it on the side and I catch it uh I haven't given any actual thought to how this is going to work cuz I I obviously can't toss it on its side it's going to have to be kind of an N for and type of flip Ella um so it's going to be like it's going to be like a toss I want to flip over just once and then catch it all right let's see here we go everybody going to flip a cake oh I almost had it I almost had it I I I think I almost had it but it just went one rotation too many I was too too

45:56 ambitious and it's it's really wow it's really oh no you know what I didn't anticipate um that good uh okay I got to do a live show now and I got cake all over my hands maybe Andrea if you're listening you can come to my rescue everyone hold on I got some kleenexes over here I didn't think about this part of it I'll be um I'll be right back so the 44% of you were right but I really appreciate the other 50 6% of you who thought I had a shot at it oh so close thought it was close oh Kleenex is not really kind of the the tool for this job but we're going to try oh my goodness oh no oh there was a moment there was a moment when that was in the air that I was so certain so absolutely certain that I had it so good but I I just lost it at the last minute Ella uh I think I've got most of it off of me actually I can hear Andrea scrambling right now she's on a 20 second delay so she is running to try to get me some kind of a I wanted to eat that Andre is very disappointed I don't know if you just heard but she's like I wanted to eat that and it's I actually licked some of the icing before I gave it to you I knew you were going to ruin it so I I almost had it could you see I don't know what it looked like on camera but it was I had it caught it and then it and then it went yeah

47:28 unbelievable I got to work on the cake flipping oh and sorry Ellie you're I got to turn your camera around so you can you can see I am back at the at the desk and you're on screen with me here again oh my goodness well okay I am uh I think I'm fit to go on so that's good there might be a little little chocolate on me still all right so I'll practice on that um but there you go Amanda Panda all right I tried I tried really hard to flip a cake for you it just couldn't quite couldn't quite make it happen all right what' you think Ella did I do okay yeah you did great you almost did it I did almost do it okay it felt like I had but then it then that feeling it disappeared I don't know I'll have to look at my face on replay afterwards because I think there was a moment where I was like I've got it didn't have it oh dear all right well look I think we got time for for a few more questions do you mind hanging around for a couple more questions oh yeah absolutely all right let's see here we got a question actually of your show now you're I'm never leaving oh I can't get rid of you now how how do I hang up this thing I can't make it I don't know it's not working okay so Paul saxberg of Roxy game games asks is there a game you've played that made you have a strong emotional reaction positive or negative I and I'm assuming I'm assuming the question isn't like in other words did you really like the game or really dislike the game because that's kind of a common board game reaction yeah I'm trying to think I mean the games that have given me some of the strongest

48:59 reactions have been games like Twilight Struggle and Watergate and Brass but those and Brass funny enough is a game that Rox The Games published but the emotion I get there is that uh there's a certain peak level of tension that I'll reach in certain games where there are too many plates spinning in the air I can't quite manage all of them but I feel like I'm this close so it's not uh it's not a frustration that comes from this game is too uh obtuse and I can't figure it out it's just just beyond my grasp and I love that feeling you know where I can't quite see everything and I don't know what the right decision is and I'm just like my brain's sweating trying to figure it all out that's a very good strong kind of positive and oddly kind of NE it's not negative but it feels it kind of because it's like like ah what do I do you know um what about you have you had like strong kind of visceral emotional reactions to games yeah I just remember my first time when I played Through the Ages um that was one of the first like heavy Euros I ever played and it blew my mind cuz I'm like oh there are games like this like amazing so I've never experienced any game like that cuz you know I was like Monopoly and cludo and then there was like Through the Ages one of my first few games I play that so much and that was like yeah that was like just just a different experience for me that it stuck in my head that's like kind of I can never get that yeah experience also beautiful feeling of discovery of oh wow

50:30 this is what board games can be like and every now and then I'll I'll still I'll still get that feeling from certain games you know uh I remember one of the earliest experiences of it for me was magic the Gathering the first time i' ever played that that was when it first came out I'd never played no one had ever played anything like that back when it first came out you know and I loved collecting cards for other things that they didn't have a game element to them but this had a game element on top of that I was like oh yeah um even something like I can imagine yeah it was a really cool experience even something like key Forge for example when I first played that I was like oh wow this is a really cool system like that kind of blew the top off my brain too um let's go for another couple of questions here coralu good try Rodney well thank you coralu question next April fools can you give us a tutorial video for cake flipping well I don't know maybe this should be a oneandone thing maybe I should just never do it again I think Andrew will be too angry with me if I keep destroying cakes around the has that she wants has to be a layered cake yes two layers Rodney oh dear um yeah last this this past year for April fools I did Monopoly a tutorial for Monopoly but really it wasn't an April Fool's joke it was a legitimate tutorial for Monopoly I I thought hey I'd like to make one maybe I should release on April fools because that way uh you know people have an explanation for why I'm doing it but I just genuinely wanted to do a tutorial for Monopoly it's one of those games that I think we keep talking about in our hobby because the game a lot of us say no not like Monopoly when people ask us about the games that we're into but a

52:02 lot of people do play that game and a lot of them don't know how to play it uh correctly because honestly the rules are not very well written it's not just that there's house rules it's that the rule book is kind of fuzzy um so I hope that that would be helpful in that way uh so Liz lizo chap asks is there a game you enjoy but cannot play with your spouse or partner Ella what about you is is there a game that you like to play um well yeah more most of the heavier games um cuz my my not that my husband can't take it but like he's a chess player so he actually beats me a lot but his tolerance for length of games is pretty low like I we mostly we play midweight euros and anything abstract but anything longer maybe in three hours he's not a hobbyist so it's like 3 hours I could be exercising no I get that I mean some games are like this big investment of time and if you don't know if you're going to have fun in the first place it's can be difficult to commit to it in advance right um that that makes sense I I'm trying to think of games like I would say my wife doesn't she's not drawn to the adventure style games that are about combat and and killing and fighting and that sort of thing but she'll she she's enjoyed Mansions of Madness in the past in games like that so it's sort of like a particular thing her favorite though is Euro games that have a theme that she enjoys so a theme that she like viticulture right but wine making and um she likes that what else

53:32 we play play caverna she enjoyed that um yeah I I think theme does a lot for her and she prefers Euro style mechanics um let's see reigning tacos asks Rodney has there been a game that was too difficult to do a how to play video uh for um well now you don't do how to play videos Ella but did you ever get a situation you don't have to name name names necessarily but did you ever have a game that you wanted to do a review for and then once you got it you were like I don't either maybe it wasn't because it was too complicated but it was just like it kind of lost your interest once you had it in front of you yeah or may or sometimes like you you want to do it but it won't be I feel like it won't be interesting just because of the way the game is yeah because it'll be like a lot of dead air or like if I go do a playr there be a lot of dead air a lot of thinking so I'm like this is a great game but it's not just for it's not for this Med that is that is a great observation that I think sometimes uh you know media creators can forget that when you're showing especially when you're showing a playthrough you I think you should consider how visually interesting is this because some games a lot of the action happens in here and that's really difficult to get across on screen I don't think those games should be played on video uh not really uh unless the people who are hosting are doing a lot of talking to help kind of fill in that Gap you know of sort of the downtime uh I don't know if there's any games have been too complicated I don't

55:04 mind a challenge I mean I look at Combat Commander over there and I think oh I'd love to do a tutorial for that game I've said that before on here just because I'd like to know I could watch a video to help me remember how to play it but it would be it' be so involved I mean I would have to take like two or two or three months off I think to figure out how to do that oh my goodness you know good it' be too much of a challenge I'd love to do Twilight struggle though that's the war game that I'd probably be most interested in trying to to do a video for do it Rodney do it I'd like to I'd like to um let's see Tyler B Robinson asks a question that I think is kind of interesting is there a mass Market in other words like a non hobby game uh that you would still enjoy playing me I yeah Oh you mean like clud though they mean like Monopoly like something you'd find in a mass Market store that isn't sort of like Euro or Mar trash style of game that we think of today you know like I like Uno because I was a teacher and I would play like kids would love Uno because you just take it out play it and I still love it just because of the interaction between the kids and they love beating you especially if you're an old like you're a teacher they love beating you like that's their aim in life to beat me when we were playing board games yeah so Uno I'm glad you mentioned Uno because that sparked my memory this is not a game that I think people necessarily think of traditionally as a mass Market game but this is where I first found it which is the game Wizard I don't know if you've played that before it's a trick-taking game no and it's fantastic and I've

56:35 played tons of it and I highly recommend it there's a game called Skull King which is available now and it's very similar it's wizard is that and wizard was the sort of the first skullking kind of Builds on top of that but it's the same basic idea skullking is great everybody should well if you played Skull King then you have played wizard because that is what wizard is oh okay it is it just doesn't it does have a pirate theme on top of it that's basically it and Skull King has a couple of extra special cards that wizard doesn't have but it's effectively the same same idea all right Ashley rhods asks what makes you the most interested in a game at first glance is it artwork theme mechanics or production at first glance o i mean these days and I see IO tul coming up in the in the questions here actually so this is appropriate I'm going to say like it is artwork to me uh in part but it's not just because of the artwork it's if I see good artwork let me put this a different way is I if I see poor artwork I start to wonder how much effort they put into the other elements of their game if that makes sense AG so I think artwork's the first thing so you know but of course you can't judge a book by its cover I have a few games where I wouldn't necessarily be super excited for the cover like Great Western Trail but the game I think is much better than the cover uh what about you what what first draws you I think you heard you say agree like is it is it art or is it yeah it's art also if I see a familiar name on the box like if it's a coldly oh what's that new game it's a cold worldly right yeah excited that's

58:07 that's a good point if I see a designer name or an artist name even or like in the case of Eno tool who's coming up here as a question whenever I see him involved in a game I go oh this is going to be such a relief to play because Ian pays such careful attention to to making the artwork not just beautiful but functional you know functional reminders everywhere about how things work you know I I'd love for someone to do a documentary on how he does what he does because I have to imagine he spends a lot of time learning and playing the game and understanding exactly how it works so he can then figure out how do I best facilitate the artwork you know to make that gameplay experience better I think it helps he loves games like he really loves games so he has a gamer's mind so it makes him do it better yeah I guess than rather than just a graphic designer doing it who's not into games someone who's been hired who who's very talented maybe as a graphic designer but doesn't necessarily understand the marriage between the artwork and the gameplay yeah so Eno tool asks how are you both filling all the time you usually be traveling to conventions well that's a good question Ian uh Ella how are you feeling that time oh I have um work mostly content and then um I don't know just hanging out with my family I guess um some of us gotten Hobbies my husband is now a carpenter oh no kidding so now he's like making stuff at home so you realize that um there are a lot of stuff that you want to do that didn't have time for and

59:38 now yeah so you're going into that yeah that's hopefully I do more content that's what I want to do I've basically back filled all that time with just more work for watch your play essentially like I just with that spare time I'm able to do more things so I just do more things um which which is good and bad like I'm very fortunate I feel very fortunate I've said this before that I'm able to keep working during this very difficult time for a lot of people who aren't able to maybe go to their usual job right so I've been very fortunate that way well it looks like we're pretty much here at at time about an hour maybe I'll I'll let you go here and I'll try to wrap up a few quick questions here at the end but I really appreciate you jumping on here and joining me for the it's live live show I hope you had an okay time no I had a great time thanks sney thanks for inviting me well it was a real pleasure it was Fair Dinkum time we had I think I don't know I don't want to say anything I might be getting it wrong too I might Australia they might not let me in I don't know well I guess I better make this official I I need to like properly hang up on you all right Ella uh until next time thanks for being with me bye oh what a good sport all right everybody well we are actually at time here but let me see if I can try to answer a few of these questions here in the live stream let me just take a quick scan oh there there's a few but not too many I I think I can maybe do this cam 301 asks Rodney do you think games are too expensive should the cost of games go down this is a very difficult

1:01:10 question to answer because should um should is a I mean it's so subjective if you're somebody with loads of money then a $60 game isn't too expensive whereas if you're somebody who's counting their Pennies A Little More close that could be very expensive in fact so expensive it's not even affordable everyone involved in the process of making a game has to make one would I think agree some amount of reasonable profit right so the people who are producing the components have to and the people who are working on the rulebook and the people who are doing the artwork and so on and so on and so forth and all that stuff starts to add up and then you got to put it through a like traditional you know distribution system and then things got to be shipped to people and so on and so forth It's it's a very expensive process so um here's here's what I'll say it might be a little bit more of a satisfying answer than what I've been giving so far I think there are opportunities in games sometimes to provide more cost sensitive opportunities okay here's a good example so Monumental here this is a giant game full of Miniatures I showed it earlier uh but there is a version of this game hi everybody I'm still here there's a version of this game you can get that doesn't have the Miniatures it just has cardboard tokens I believe correct about that someone can correct me in the comments if I'm wrong but I think there's a version you can get that's just the cardboard tokens so if you don't want or need or can afford necessarily all the expensive plastic in here that would be a more affordable way of playing the game now again you got to

1:02:41 remember the publisher then has to come up with maybe a new box size and a new format and and artists now to do the tokens and all the rest of it so it's not going to be a solution for every situation but that is a way in which sometimes you can kind of try to service both things right both create something a little more economical and also have the option for someone who maybe can afford to buy the more glamorous thing so got another question here uh asking what game does Luke and Andrea beat you every time in and Andrea is telling me this is someone who's asked this question a bunch of times uh make sure when you're asking questions in the comments uh you don't have to ask them multiple times we're keeping an eye out for them so what game does Luke and Andrea beat you every time in well um it used to be if it was was dice in the game it was pretty much a guaranteed win from for Luke but we we have not been playing any games consistently enough that there's sort of like a game we would say oh this game everyone's you know this person's always winning in because we just don't my schedule doesn't afford me the time to sort of just pick through my uh library of games and go hey let's play terraform Mars 10 times in a row and see who wins the most type of thing a lot of the times we're playing new games and a lot of the games we do play they can be cooperative we're playing man Madness then there's not going to be a winner per se there's going to be kind of a group thing so I don't think there's really like a good answer to that question but I appreciate the question the main thing to me is just that we're having fun when we play and as long as that happens then I guess we all get to win right all right so

1:04:11 let's go down here we got a question from Jackie um so Jackie commenting here Andrea tell your dad that birds usually tap at the window and they see the reflections right oh this might be an older older uh question from a previous one there was a bird that was tapping on the window of our house and it kept flying back and tapping and flying back and ta tapping just really brazing if you go to my Rodney J Smith Twitter account you'll find video there like a minute and a half of this this beautiful cute little bird couldn't care less with the the cat on the other side of the window trying to attack it would just keep coming back and certainly one of the theories I've heard is that the bird keeps coming back because it sees its own reflection or thinks there's maybe a mate in the window or whatever so or maybe it's trying to fight I don't know but anyway well I think we did it I think we got through the questions for this this segment so I want to thank everybody once again for joining us for another live show I'm so disappointed I couldn't catch a cake for you I really thought maybe I'd pull that off but it didn't happen and you can imagine there's no one more disappointed than Andrea right now but I think that's it until next time which will be don't forget July 8th we'll have another live show of all goes well I'll see you there but until next time thanks for watching