Braided Skies and Diablo V

0:01 Hey Mitchell, good to see Jamie.

0:04 Hello.

0:06 Welcome to Positively Board Gaming. I'm happy to be here. I'm looking forward to spending some time with you. Um, how are you doing?

0:13 I'm doing well. I'm I'm looking forward to this too as I always do. Um, and yeah, we we do this we do this every week if you're joining us. You know, this is one of the things and I I think I don't know if I learned this from television or whatever and you you never know who was genuinely joining you for the first time. I think yeah, it's easy to assume that there's a continuity when we talk, when we say things, and there's no need to really explain because people, oh, they've known us. We've done 78 77 78 episodes now. But I never take for granted that it could be someone joining us for the first time. And if you are, yay. We're happy to be here.

0:46 Yeah. Welcome.

0:47 Jamie, of course, you know, from Stonem Games, an incredible designer, publisher, incredible person. Um, and I'm an actor. Thank you. I'm I'm an actor, but I'm a fan of gaming. I love board gaming. And the two of us together are positively board gaming. So, thank you for joining us if it's your first time. If not, you know the spiel. Um, you know, I I I have to show you this. I sort of alluded to it before we started. So, I there's a it's a salted

1:11 It's a salted It's It's

1:14 in fairness, is a few days old. I'm not holding that against it. An old cookie is still better than no cookie at all. That's what I say. Um, it's it's a couple of days old. It's been It's been in the house for a couple of days. But there's a place called Neighborly, which is a restaurant. It started off just a restaurant with a lot of different things that a lot of different types of food that they served and then they were really smart. They rebrands it. They rebranded it basically into like a bunch of mini restaurants within one.

1:38 Okay.

1:39 It could just be like one large place with a bunch of different with a large menu. But one of the things they have on the menu and they have great they have Middle Eastern, they have Asian inspired foods, they have Italian, all great stuff, but of course they have these great salted chocolate chip cookies. Uh I don't know if it's like salted caramel chocolate. I don't think there's caramel, but these things are so good, Jamie. And the experiment is I want to see a few days later. It still holds the joy for me. I have a feeling it will.

2:07 We're going to try it in real time. We real

2:09 Yeah. In real time. And this one's a little It's a little crunchy. This one is not undercooked and not overcooked, but it's like

2:16 you can see layers of chocolate. The salt on the bottom. So, you could really Some things say salt and you don't really see that. This one you see the salt. Yeah.

2:25 It's still good. Oh my god, it's still so good. Now, if for some reason when I'm smiling during this episode, if you're watching us on the Stonem Games YouTube channel and you see a piece of cookie or a piece of chocolate stuck in my face, that's on me. I have to own it cuz I decided I wanted to eat this cookie with my friend during our show. And uh I'm doing it. And my gosh, Jamie, but that is so good. I'm so glad I did this. You have no idea. How are you? what's been going on. It's crazy.

2:54 Well, I'm jealous of you now. That's how I'm doing. You're already a delicious cookie. Um I might have a treat for myself at some point. I um Yeah, I did I I saw today I I have some bits of news that I wanted to to get your uh your thoughts on because I saw one that Diablo 5 and World of Warcraft Forever were announced recently. I was curious about this. Even um Garrett on the on the live cast the other day, our digital gamer panelist, he was like, I want to know what Mitchell thinks about thinks about these. Are you excited? How do what do you think?

3:24 Well, Jamie, it's so funny because this coincides with one of my little mini topics that I wanted to bring up to you. Okay. I'm very excited. First of all, you should know that it was a teaser trailer for Diablo 5.

3:34 Uh Blizzcon, which they brought back, which used to be the Blizzard ccentric uh convention that you could go to and they would talk about Warcraft and Diablo and all the other Blizzard properties. I think it was down for a while since co, but it is back. Um, and they announced, of course, very surprised announcement, Diablo I because we are in season 15 of Diablo I now, which we'll get to in a second.

3:52 Uh,

3:53 and um, yeah, that was a teaser trailer. Um, it looked really cool. They didn't really tell us a whole lot except that it's slated for spring of 2029, I think.

4:03 I think it's 2030 is what Garrett said. Yeah, knowing Blizzard. Yes. Yes. Which is strange. It's strange to hear something. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm excited. And Garrett's probably on the same page. Like, yeah, it's cool, but to hear it's like, I'm getting you a car for your 50th birthday, you 17-year-old kids. Like, I have to wait 33 years to get my car. Um, so it's exciting, but at the same time, it's like, oo, the nice part is there's still so much content for Diablo I. And, um, Jamie, someone must have been listening to me at Blizzard. I only had one one request for Diablo 5 and that was to bring back Decard Kane. Well, they didn't make us wait until 2029 or 2030 depending on what you believe.

4:46 They brought Decard Kane back for season 15 of Diablo I.

4:50 Oh, they did? Okay.

4:51 He he like comes back and like he's like not really a spirit, but he's I was brought back for to fight help you fight the primevables yet again. I don't know how I'm here, but I am. They didn't even bother like trying to explain how he came back. It's like somehow I materialized to help you, Harajum. It was great. I saw him and I started squealing like a little school boy. I I was like, I can't wait to I I was going to text you. I was going to email you. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was like, I'm going to wait for the show. They brought back Decard Kane. I didn't say anything. I didn't say it. It's the It's the pause that says everything, Jamie. The pause tells it all. So, I'm so excited Decker Kane is back. I was playing and he guides you through

5:31 these old dungeons and the old bosses from previous games Diablos 1, 2, and three. So, you can relive in, you know, in obviously a modern form. You can relive some of the old characters, the old battles and do them in this. And it is so much fun. It was so smart. I couldn't have been the only one that was, you know, wishing Decard Kane was still around in the game. And it just brings so much fun. It It's like I feel like the heart and soul of the game is back. And it's not a spoiler because at the very beginning he's like I am Decard Kane. I don't know how I'm back but he's back. So if you were a Decard Kane fan or if you heard if you were with me and thinking oh man I wish to bring him back. He's back but season 15 Jamie. Yes.

6:08 So I was very excited about that news. Yeah. Yeah.

6:11 As someone who I think fairly recently you've talked a little bit how you've gotten back into World of Warcraft. Did you look into the the Forever announcement? I did. And I think what and I was trying to figure out exactly what it was because at the when they did um when they did the reveal I was like, "Okay, what does that mean?" I think it was basically a refresh of all the original content, a refresh of all the original zones um and just adding making it look like basically making it look like a modern game. They were really smart when they designed the game. I don't know if you know much about World of Warcraft. When they designed it, they purposely used a cartoony that sort of cartoonish style of graphics so that it would age really well and it could run on any computer. Cuz a lot of the newer games, if you get a new AAA title, the whole thing is, well, can my computer run it? Do I have the processing power?

6:57 Do I have the graphics card capable of running this great game or keeping it viable for a long time?

7:02 Yeah. by going with that aesthetic. Not only was it cool and unique looking in terms of how it stood out against other games of its type, but it aged really well because this it was it's kind of like Nintendo games. Nintendo doesn't play the cutting edge edge graphic game like oh it's going to be cutting edge graphics. They always look cartoony and it's always about the content. It's always about how the games play and your experience with them and they age really really well. And I think Warcraft is the same way. So I think this is going to be like a refresh of the look of the game. I don't know much beyond that, but it looked like I saw some of the zones remastered with what they were trying to do with different lighting, creating different moods, different looks. I'm so excited. I'm going to drool on that might be the cookie. Uh, so yeah, I was excited about that as well because again, I guess I'm a Blizzard guy with all the games that they have that I love. So yeah, I was excited about both and I just wish the only thing is it's like again I come back to you and Stonemire, it's like when you announce something, it's either out or imminent.

7:55 It's it's release is imminent so you don't have long to wait but when you get these announcements where it's exciting but oh now I have to wait and at least Blizzard dated it

8:03 you know with you know so now you just now now the manchild in me has to be very patient

8:08 which is not easy.

8:10 Well would you rather you bring up a question about dates there. Are you glad that they released what sounds like fairly realistic dates to meet that they maybe will probably meet versus them saying late 2027 and then late 27 27 rolls around and they delay it and they're like, "Oh, no, it's actually going to be late 2028 and then maybe they delay it again." I think that happens a lot in the video game. Which would which of those would you prefer?

8:33 Oh, that's an easy call. I I'd rather I'd rather you I'd rather you told me it was coming out in, you know, 12 years. I'd rather be happily surprised than disappointed. So, that's that's the way I am. I'd rather you, you know, over, you know, oversold whatever the date is. Just tell me, put it way in the future and let me know that it's not going to be here. And then if it does show up early, it's a win-win. If it does show up early, I'm I'm hugely surprised. If it shows up in time, it's like, at least it's on time. It might have been three years from now, but it's on time. So, I'd much rather have the more realistic date and then have and and be happily surprised.

9:07 Yeah. One other little piece of news that came out was that uh one of the games that you've spoken about that you enjoy is Zombie Dice.

9:16 Yes.

9:16 And the person who created and published Zombie Dice, Steve Jackson, Steve Jackson Games, I learned recently that he is he's not fully retiring, but he is stepping down as head of the company, giving that position. He's actually kind of creating two positions. they're going to be um held by two different people and he's just looking to design games for a little bit as he kind of I guess winds down in his career after 46 years of running this company. So I I just wanted to see if you had any thoughts about that or wanted to give a shout out the zombie dice given that news. It's

9:45 Oh, what about you know and all all of us I think Munchkin maybe his most popular

9:48 Munchkin is his most popular you know series of games. Uh I didn't know that. That's incredible. That's you know you know what good good for him. He's he's he's put out he's had such a long career. He's been in the public eye for so long. And again, I think you'd be surprised because I originally when I looked at zombie dice and looked at munching, I was like, "Let me see what else." And there were other dice games. He loved dice games. Obviously, he loves dice games. So that those are near and dear to my heart. I didn't hear about this at all. This is a surprise. But it's bittersweet because I'm happy for him. He deserves to, you know, go go out the way he wants. If he wants just to have the the smaller workload and just design a few more titles, whatever he wants to do, and then hand the reigns of the company over to some, that's great. Do what you want to do. You've earned it. You've been doing this for like you said almost five decades. That's uh that's really cool. I like that a lot. I like that a lot. And good and thank you thank you to him for bringing so much joy to my table over the years because again these games are so much fun and uh and accessible a lot. That's what I think when I think of Steam Jack Steve Jackson games. They're they're accessible games. You can get together with a group of people, put them out, learn the rules and start playing which I love. Um so I think that's awesome. I think that's great.

10:54 I'm impressed by the longevity. Like you said almost five decades. That's incredible for any career, much less a career in uh in game publishing. Yeah.

11:01 Could you see could you see like doing this for 40ome years?

11:06 I

11:06 I know it's hard to say because every you're very much in the now. You're a person that is in the now, which I love.

11:11 So, I mean, I guess if you're enjoying it, I mean,

11:14 yeah, I can't I I love I love my job and I love working in this world and in this in Yeah. in this industry. So, I can't see myself not I don't not working in this,

11:27 right?

11:27 But 46 years is a long time. I've been in this for almost we'll say 14 years at this point.

11:33 So, that's another 32 on top of that. I would be 75

11:38 if I was in this for another 32 years, which is probably maybe around the age of of Steve Jackson, maybe around there.

11:43 Yeah. Yeah.

11:44 Um, but I kind of hope to be still still be doing something creative and fun and interesting at that age, even if I'm in a in a good place financially. I I think I I I think I'd get bored not not doing something creative every Yeah.

11:58 I think the tougher thing would be the tougher question would have been like handing the reins over to somebody else to run the company

12:04 cuz again usually people have their you know have their strengths like okay I'm more of a creative and a business but you're very you're very fortunate in that you have a mind that is good with both and you seem to enjoy doing both running the business and and having the creative freedom that you have and doing the creative side. So, I wonder if like handing over the the the business end would be like, "No, I don't think I can do that. I don't know." Again, you'd have to see where you are. It's hard to say what current Jamie maybe would do. Rather, what future Jamie might say, you know what? I've been running this company for 40 something years. I'm done. I just wanted to sign a couple more games and I'm out. So, you never know. You never know.

12:38 Yeah. We'll see how that goes. I I I will say in regards to that, I I I look around at the the people that I work with and my peers and I see so many incredibly talented PE people. I don't view myself as being special or unique at all in this space. I think I have a fun I have fun wearing a lot of different hats. I like to do that. Maybe I'm unique in that way. Maybe a lot of people like to do like one specific thing. I like to wear a lot of hats. So that is maybe an asset that I bring. But I often look at different parts of my job and I'm like, I think I do this pretty well, but I can think of three people who would do this part of my job much much better. And I hope I work with those people a little bit here and there while I still want to do this thing. But if the day comes where I don't want to do that thing anymore, I I can think of a few people who could do it better. Any part of my job?

13:19 That's great. I think that's great. And yeah, you're very humble. You're you're pretty amazing at everything you do. So, and you're fortunate. And the fortunate part is that you truly enjoy it.

13:28 Again, because you know to have all these different aspects of your job, so many things under your job description, multiple job descriptions for what you do. Um, and to actually get joy and find the joy in all of them, that's not easy. There's always a there's always like, well, you know what? I do this because I have to to get to this. It's like when I talk about like everything in life is divided into two lists, have to and want to. And my goal is to get everything off the have to list and onto the want to list. I think you're very fortunate in that most of your stuff in your work world is on the want to. You know, I don't think you feel like h because you know, you approach it with joy and I think it affects I think it positively affects everything you do. So

14:03 yeah,

14:03 yay you Jamie. Um, speaking of EA, uh, you know, last week on Positively Board Gaming, uh, you know, we had a little bit of a teaser.

14:14 Yeah.

14:14 Uh, you may have revealed the next and the final the final new game of 2026 for Stonemire,

14:21 right? Braided Skies.

14:23 Braided Skies. You and you asked me, you first of all, this this episode we're going to we're going to be we're going to be talking about Justice. Forget about this is all going to be about that new game. And last week you showed me this all started this all started with a with an email and it turned into revealing the the box and then you showed the box and you asked me to figure out what kind of a game it was. I'm sure I was way off but I want to hear about this game. Tell us about your new game.

14:47 You want to hear what it actually is?

14:50 I blew it. I know I blew it, but that's okay.

14:52 Well, I guess the things that were revealed last week, I revealed the box cover the name. It's called Braidant Skies. It's a one to five player game and it's designed by Dan Germaine who I think I said last week this was his first design and I believe that is still true but I learned that Dan also has another game that coincidentally is about airships. This game is about airship called a Grand Central Skyport I believe from a different company

15:15 and I think maybe he must have got signed that after we signed this with him. Either way I'm very happy for Dan that he has another game. This doesn't need to be his first game. Um, but I think I think this one actually might still come out before Grand Central Skyport, but this is a game where uh it's a an uh an airship placement game where each player has three airships. I mean, I'll hold up some compon components while I talk about this. Each player has three airships that they can upgrade. They can actually put things inside the airship.

15:45 Oh, I love that.

15:45 Um, crew members and harvesters, they can upgrade their airship miniatures with them. Here's the airship as they place them. Um,

15:55 I'm getting my glasses on. I have to see everything.

15:57 Yeah. So, here's one of like the green airship. And each airship is And you can see there's like a there's a space in there to hold two different things. That's where the crew member and the harvester go.

16:07 Okay. And each player has three of these airships that look the same except they each have a little um a little flag that that sticks on the airship there so that you know which ship that is because different action spaces on the board are for different ships. Some of them can hold any types of ships, but some of them are specific for a specific type of ship.

16:26 Okay.

16:27 Um and the the theme of the game is that you are running this uh this tour company in a fantasy world. You're you are yeah you're a tour operator.

16:37 Okay.

16:38 And you are bringing these uh these tourists to different places around the world. Well, part of it is you're you are becoming a better tour company by upgrading your airship and upgrading different things.

16:49 Okay.

16:49 The other part is actually taking tourists to the wonders of the world and um and showing them these beautifully illustrated wonders, these locations that Andrew has created for the game.

17:00 I love that. I Okay, so let me ask you. Yeah.

17:03 Let's let's start let's start off like it's an interview. Jamie Stegmer of Stonemire Games.

17:08 When this game was brought to you when you first knew about it, when you first saw it,

17:12 what was it that drew this game to you that said, "Okay, this is going to be a Stonem game. I totally see it." Uh what was it that drew you to it originally?

17:19 Well, this it's a great question because this game has changed pretty significantly since the start. And yet, I can still see the origins of that game in this game. Um, the very earliest version of the game, and Dan has recently joged my memory about this, uh, I believe was called Nomads. It was not connected to this Smoking Bones universe that Andrew has created. This is part of a series of games that we were making and a series of

17:42 um, books that Andrew is writing.

17:45 Oh, that's amazing.

17:46 Yeah, it's a whole it's a whole world. Uh, but at the time the this game was not connected with that world at the very first. It it was just a I thought a really interesting um game about completing different goals and kind of stacking those goals to uh until you had a certain number of them and that triggered the end of the game. Um it's been a long time since I played that version of the game. But this idea of having multiple wonders and having those um the that there's only the your current wonder is the only one with an active ability. So, you have to choose when is the right time that I want to get another wonder because I'm replacing the previous wonders ability, but it's still always good for me to get that other wonder. There's a little bit of a balance there that

18:28 that was in the original game.

18:30 But once we started collaborating with Andrew and Dan started working on this, uh, that became part of the game,

18:36 but the there's a lot of other things that he added. He added this worker placement element. He added this upgrade element. You're upgrading your ships, you're upgrading the board, you are moving up these tracks, uh, which give you instant benefits along the way, and you're also improving your endgame scoring. And the tracks are entangled with one another, so you want to try to move up a couple different tracks.

18:54 And we also added I know you like special components in games. This game has a a really cool component that is hard to show right now, but I will kind of give you a a not a tease because I I'm not hiding anything here, but basically it includes a topographical map. you are flying above the clouds

19:12 and at at certain times you will kind of dive down into the cloud cover reveal. So and when you do that you'll remove a cloud tile from the board

19:23 like a cloud of war kind of thing. I mean like a

19:26 a little bit

19:28 you're just like yeah take yeah

19:29 you don't know what'll be underneath you flip over the tile there's like an event on the on the back side of the tile and then by removing the tile you permanently add an action space to the board for every player to use.

19:39 Oh

19:40 so I like games that do that in general and just the the it's a 3D topographical map. So, you have this board and you have these uh this is one layer of it and then there's another layer of of this. Uh here's the second layer. It doesn't look like it looks like there's big gaps here because these are filled in with tiles as you're playing. Right. Right. And they all those two go on top of the board.

20:03 Um which is very big to hold up. Let's see if I can hold this up a little bit.

20:06 Okay.

20:07 But um the thing that I think you'll really like about these cloud tiles that we don't even really advertise, I'm telling you Mitchell and anyone who's listening, but they are magnetic. They snap into place in the board.

20:16 Don't do TV with magnetized components.

20:19 They're magnetized components. So, as you're like I I I'm excited for the moment where people are like kind of putting them on the board and trying to figure out exactly where they fit and it'll just snap into place. Maybe at the time they'll also be wondering like is this going to stay in place? And then it'll snap into place. Yeah. So, this is the whole board. You can see kind of the

20:35 Oh, that's beautiful, too.

20:37 This area that is illustrated but doesn't have much information. This is where that those those big cloud boards go on top of. Yeah, it's a pretty big board. You'll need a decent

20:46 big board. But I love that because again, when you think of So when you think of airship, you think it it I think it conotes a certain amount of grandness to it. You know, you're thinking of airship and travel. You don't want to think about traveling in a tiny area. You want some grandiose board where you feel you can na a map to navigate is what I'm trying to say. You want you want to have an area to navigate because that that's part of it. And uh Oh, dude. And for those, you know, if you've ever listened to us before, uh, either top 10s or any of our lists, I always talk about Merchants of the Dark Road as being one of the games that has some of the best components right out of the box, let alone the Deluxe Edition, which is off the charts. And one of the things that Jamie and I both love about that, it has a wheel that you spin

21:26 and it's magnetized in the center. So, it sort of spins, it rotates on a magnetic axis. It's And Jamie and I are both like, "Oo, magnetic wheels. Me likey." So, we both love that. So to have and by the way the iconography I love. It makes me again

21:40 it has [clears throat] the Stonem look for iconography which I love. And if you played Stonemire games before they'll instantly be familiar with you know with to you. If you've played any of Jaime's games or any of the Stonem published games they have a very familiar iconography even if the games are different. You can recognize the icons. They're very easy to read and it's sort of like comfort food to me when I see that. I'm like okay I I feel like I know the game already. And I think that's what's really that's what really tracks across Stonewire for me. It's like I have this immediate like okay there's a level of familiarity and I'll learn the rules and it's really really I'm very excited magnetic bits.

22:13 There's one other component that I think you might uh be excited about here. There there's uh so as part of this cloud area of the board on either end of that board are two custom trays that also kind of look cloudlike. Oh,

22:28 I know not everyone loves white trays, but I think in this case, I think it works really well because they're kind of they they bookend the board um on either side of the board. There's uh the the tap stones are here. These are some resources that you're using to run your ships. There's other tokens in here. And there's even two custom dice. I know you love to customize. Yeah. So, when you at certain times when you're kind of diving down into these tapstone mines, you don't really know what you're going to find. So, you roll one of these dice and and that's that's what you find down there. And then to store the rest of the player components, there's a board. And this is just for storage. This isn't for the game, but right, um, you put this in the box between these other two tiles or these other two trays to hold all the player specific colors. These are the player colors in the game.

23:09 Are those tarot cards there or no? Those What are those?

23:12 They're pretty big cards. Yeah, these are the wonder cards and we wanted big cards to feature the art. Uh, they're I believe they're the same size of like the encounters inside. Okay, if anyone has that

23:22 a little bit smaller than the cards in um

23:25 in Vantage,

23:26 I'll show a few of these out like as

23:30 some people listening to this may have played a game called Galactic Cruise, which is about um running a a cruise company to space. This game is the more I think about it, and it wasn't intentional, but this game is like running a Galactic Cruise in a uh in a fantasy world instead of in space. And so in Galactic Cruise, you you end up specializing in different um different reasons that someone might go to space like they or might go traveling. They might go for an adventure. They might go for for to relax. They might go um for the food. And the the wonders in this game like there's this is a cultural wonder. So you might go to learn about the c a different country's culture, different areas culture. And so these are these those cards. And or you might go for a sense of adventure. So you might do something a little bit more wild. And so Andrew's created all these like fantasy wonders that definitely have a fantasy element, but they also have they don't feel too otherworldly.

24:24 You know,

24:25 they're great.

24:26 Yeah.

24:27 I really love the kind of the the sense of otherworldliness, but also um

24:33 the familiarity at the same time.

24:35 Yes. Yeah.

24:36 Yeah.

24:37 And so you can end up specializ these are where the tracks are tied into the game. You can end up specializing in being an an adventure tour company versus an advent culture company or I think scenic was the last one. Yeah, scenic.

24:48 And do you get different rewards depending on the track that you take? Do you get different rewards and have different goals depending on what you choose?

24:54 That's a great Yeah, that was something we worked on during the design early on. The tracks all felt a little bit the same and we moved away from that where the tracks are structured similarly but you uh the rewards you get on each one are different. The ways that you score during the game on each of them are also different,

25:08 right? And the the game there's a lot of timing in this game like choosing, okay, this is the moment that I want to move up on this track to get this reward because it'll be the best if I take it at this moment or it'll be more relevant at that moment.

25:19 Yeah.

25:19 Did Andrew do the art as well? Who did the art for this?

25:22 Yes, I I should I should have said that more clearly already. Yeah. Andrew Bosley, who did the art for Tapestry, he's known for Everddale and a variety of other games. Andrew did the art and he's created this world. This is his story. This is his world that he's building. So, he's

25:35 I love this. I I've I don't think I've ever seen Andrew quite so excited about a game because he's he's putting his heart and his his full imagination into this game.

25:44 Well, you again it's it's creating a world and it's I'm thinking through through your company now through your catalog and you you have done some world building in your catalog of games which is incredible and I I love that again because like I said it it feels comfortable you know that world even if it's an iteration on an existing world uh like you did with expeditions. I mean, there there there are ways to iterate on an existing world to make something different yet feels comfortable and feels semifamiliar because a a great it's a great way to onboard gamers that already have a taste of that world or that experience. Um, so let me ask you this.

26:18 Yeah. Yeah.

26:19 During the process, during the development process, uh, as the game started to take shape to what it eventually became, was there a moment because again, you you always have an idea at the beginning, okay, here's what we're doing. And then you talked about like the evolution of how the game sort of evolved over time. It used to be this and then it sort of became this and we loved this even more. Is there something that surprised you during the process? An evolution of the game or a mechanism or a moment that surprised you like, "Wow, I didn't see that coming. I love that. I'm so happy we went this way. I'm so happy this happened." Just that sort of moment that you didn't see coming during the process of making this game. I think. Yeah, that's a fantastic question and uh it ties to one of my favorite mechanisms in the game, which is that each player has this um they have a player mat that represents kind of their home base where their their ships are coming back to dock. Here's a here's an example of one of these player mats. So,

27:13 okay. And as Dan started working on this uh this idea of worker placement, which I I don't think was in the very original version of the game, but he started working on this idea of worker placement, he he started toying around with the idea that um that the turn where you take back all your workers from the board when you recall them, right? Often times in games that is a

27:39 not I don't want to say a wasted turn but kind of a a weaker recovery turn. I'll take it back.

27:45 I'll take it back. I have this type of thing in expeditions. In expeditions you you take a refresh turn every now and then where you just kind of refresh. It's a it's a low-key turn.

27:54 Um but Dan decided to lean into the idea of making this the most powerful turn in the game. Oh, like you are building up to these recall turns. you you are improving your mat here so that your recall turns are more powerful.

28:08 Okay,

28:09 I've only seen this in a few other games, but the final result was really surprising, delightfully surprising as to how good it felt to take back your workers instead of to place your workers. And that to me was a real feat that that I think Dan pulled off in this game.

28:24 That's really cool. I call those like the unsexy but necessary moments, right?

28:28 And again, that can apply to life, too. We have plenty of unsexy but necessary moments. Uh, you know, going to the bathroom, one of those things. But I mean, you could think of I'm not trying to, you know, reclaiming workers is going to the bathroom. Sorry, that was a bad analogy. But, you know, the the the big picture is like you took something that could have been a just a necessary moment. And I think that most gamers would say, "Hey, you know, we're used to this. We're used to this mechanism. Okay, we're going to take the workers back and you turned it into something something special, which is really really cool." Yeah,

28:55 that's Dan certainly did. Yeah.

28:58 I love that. I love that.

29:00 The one area where I may have influenc influenced it a little bit is that we started we found that these turns are so big that if you are waiting for the next if you're doing this turn and the next player is waiting to take their turn it can it can drag on a little bit. And so we realized that for all the different benefits and you can see some benefits are built into this map. Others you are upgrading. These are slots to upgrade and put other cards on here. So you can have a pretty powerful map by the end. um we realized that we only had a few benefits that could go on the mat that actually did impact other players.

29:30 And so we removed them from the mat. And so now if you and I Mitchell are taking backto-back recall turns in Braided Skies,

29:37 we'll just do it simultaneously. That we're not affect. And that really keeps the game moving along at a really nice pace. So

29:44 do you ask I'm sorry, Jim. Do you ask when that happens? Like I'm going to do this if anyone's going to do it or you could do

29:49 No, you don't have to do that. I I just say I'm taking a recall turn. go ahead and take your turn. You're okay. Okay. Got you.

29:54 Oftentimes it ends up lining up like you it's typical for multiple players in a row to be taking a recall turn.

30:00 Um it doesn't need to happen that way because you can take one even after you only have one ship on the board, but most of the time, many times, players are placing all three ships. Individual turns. I use a turn to place a ship. I use a turn to place a ship. I use a turn to place the third ship. And then on my fourth turn, maybe I'll pull all my my ships back.

30:16 Right.

30:16 Many of us are typically given doing that at the same time. Well, I'm glad you brought this up because it's something I and again from a design perspective, it's something you don't think of necessarily as a player that you have to build in these maintenance moments. There's going to be maintenance built into a lot of games and how do you mitigate the sort of like, okay, let me just do this

30:36 mixed in with other people ready to take their turn. Uh, how is it going to slow down? Because again, again, I'm trying to make analogous things between both of our businesses. You know, movies are about pace. TV show is a lot about pace and timing. And games have a similar feel. There's a musicality to it. And you don't want to interrupt the rhythm of that game or the rhythm of that show or that movie by doing something that you have to do, but okay, let's just take this moment out. You don't want to interrupt the flow, especially when you're getting and games have a pace. Games have a feel to them and each one is unique depending on the players, depending on how it's played. So, finding elegant ways to manage that, it's something you don't think about when you think about someone designing a game. So, I'm really glad you brought that up. when you're right that I I think a lot about the flow. I'm glad you used that word. I think about the flow of games a lot and it's one of the reasons that many of our games don't use a round structure. I think there are c there are huge benefits to round structure. Works great in wingspan and fininspan in worms span. All three of those games works great. But in this game you're there is no you're never interrupting the game to say okay everybody stop for a minute. We're all going to do these three steps because it's the end of the round phase.

31:41 You're just doing stuff the entire game until the end. you're either placing a ship on your turn or you're returning all your ships to your board. And that leads to some great decisions as to when you do those things, the order in which you do those things rather than having that round structure. Again, not perfect game, but I think it works really, really well here to keep that flow of the game just moving forwards at all.

32:01 Okay. Um, so here again, this is this is great. This turned into sort of like an a quasi interview, like sharing information, which is fun because I'm trying to be the voice of gamers that are watching or, you know, wanting to learn more. So, you know, this is fun for me, too. So, and thank you for doing this. This is like this is like my normally, again, if you're just watching or listening, Jamie and I will each bring a topic. And I and I texted Jamie earlier. I was like,

32:23 can this just be all about the new game? Because there's going to be a lot of back and forth. And I really selfishly, it was totally selfish. I wanted to learn about Stonemer's new game. Um, so now again, when this video is released, you will have already talked about the game and reveal it. So, we're not spoiling anything. I feel like you're spoiling it. I mean like I'm getting inside information, but when it airs it's it's appropriate. So,

32:45 uh do you have are you announcing a release date yet? Um has not up by the time this Oh, he's shaking his head. I like this. Where's this going? Go ahead.

32:54 So, as people are listening to this on September 24th at the earliest uh maybe in the future as well. Okay.

33:03 But, uh you're right that that is after I will have revealed this game.

33:07 Okay. Um, and then right now as we're talking and even as we're as you're listening to this next week, the freight shipments for this game, sending it to our fulfillment centers around the world, those are still in progress. So that's happening right now. We've already made this game. We've already made it. It's on the ships headed to our fulfillment centers. And if all goes well, uh, we're aiming for mid October as the launch date. So about a month from as we're talking right now, coming up in the very near future. Um,

33:33 I'm gathering my shekels right now. Putting my money aside. Go ahead. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.

33:38 Uh if things don't go well, we might adjust that. But I think that that is the current plan. I I um so I'm I'm hoping that happens. And this will coincide a little bit for with uh Essence Spiel, the big game convention happening in Germany every year. We are we we don't normally necessarily plan around conventions but we we asked Andrew and Dan if we if they wanted to go to Essence Spiel and so we kind of sponsored their trip so that both of them are going with I believe both of them with their with their wives are going to

34:07 and so they'll be there at our booth to talk about the game to share it to sign the game. I think Andrew is going to do some like live art while he's there and so we really wanted things to

34:16 coincide with with that because we had to plan that far in advance. So, we didn't know how the end of the game would end up that, you know, but their tickets were bought months ago. So,

34:25 Oh, that's fantastic. That's so exciting. Okay, so last question I have. And again, this is when I see how cool those components are, the look of it, the art,

34:35 the type of game that it is, there's there's sort of like a again, this is like I I could feel like the warmth of this game, and I what I mean is it's just it's a comfortable, fun game. It's just like I can even though it's a competitive game, this doesn't feel like a high stress competitive game to me. It feels like an enjoyable competitive and those are two different kinds of things at the table. Those are two different experiences. So I and I look at it and the aesthetic and what you've done with the components. It doesn't need anything. But yet I still ask, are there going to be extra things that you're like you're doing like the rubberized playmats or board? Are you doing anything extra with the game or is it just as isis, which would be perfectly great because it looks amazing.

35:11 We did well with this one. We just decided to make it really fancy out of the gate. So all these components that you're seeing, a lot of UV printed tokens, the trays, the dice, this is just the standard version of the game. And it did make the game maybe slightly more expensive than it would have been, but

35:27 uh it also made the game like these Tapstone tokens, it made them you're able to do colorblind friendly tokens because each different icon on them. Yep.

35:34 Um and is a slightly different shape. So

35:36 y

35:37 um the only I guess add-on that is with Andrew has a uh a book in this world um a fullcolor book that he's illustrated and written and so we'll have a few copies of that on our website. He's already been selling it for a while so it's not a new thing but anyone who hasn't had exposure to it will have the option to add that on if they want but in terms of components everything is deluxe out of the box. It's a Yeah,

36:01 that's what I thought. Yeah,

36:02 that's why I pref I can't think of anything that it needs or what I would I'm like, "Oh, I usually I'm usually already fantasizing about golden encrusted feathers and craziness." But as I look at I'm like, "This game is deluxified." That's why I was like, "Not that it needs it, but our is there. It doesn't need it. It is actually perfect." And

36:19 I I I thank you for indulging me uh this week and letting us just bo Oh, I I I'm so excited. And this is one of those things where I'm sure the questions or the comments in this video, as they should be, are going to be all about the game. And listen, I wanted to do this knowing that of course Jamie's going to be doing his reveal on the YouTube channel as well. Um, but I didn't get to ask questions during that video, so how could possibly be as good as this one? I know. I know. I know there's there might be some slight redundancies, but I'm trying to again for people that don't watch the videos that only access us in podcast form, this will be their their main way of learning about the game and hearing about it from you. Um, so this was really this was really really cool. So yeah, mid-occtober and again Jamie always says, you know, that's what the plan is. And again, when you're dealing with things that are out of your control, last time I know Jaime does not pilot his own or captain his own cargo freight ship. So, and even if he did, he doesn't control mother nature or the oceans or whatever goes on when during travel. So, there are so many things that are out of anyone's control when it comes to getting things from somewhere else to here. So, we always, you know, hopefully people always think in their mind, okay, I have to think about the reality of this. It isn't always going to be perfect. So, but even so, even just knowing that it's that close or could be that close is so exciting. And congratulations and congratulations to you. I know it's exciting for you to always put another fantastic game into the world and I was excited. Thank you for sharing that with me today.

37:48 Well, thank you Mitchell. It's been a lot of fun to work with Dan and Andrew on this over the last four to five years. It's been a while that we've been working on it to get

37:55 and bravo to Dan and Andrew as well and fantastic work. I can't this is I'm This is one that really resonates a lot. I mean know obviously I love Stonemire games but this is one that especially resonates with me. I was just like my eyes got really scary creepy big like yeah he got Why does Mitchell have this going to be a comment? Why did Mitchell get creepy eyes? Like oh you obviously don't know him. You don't know my you don't know my podcast partner. He always has creepy eyes. That's a superpower.

38:19 Well thank you for all your questions Mitchell. It was fun to talk about. I'm of course happy to answer any questions in the comments. I think the one question that I don't answer is price because there are many answers to the to the price question. It depends on your region.

38:32 Like they're all currency wise they're the equivalent. But if I say a number, you might think that's for a different region. There's a different price for Stommy Champions. You get a 20% discount. There's going to be a launch discount price.

38:42 I don't say it to avoid that confusion and because we might change some of those discounts leading up to the launch. That's the only question. Anything else is fair game. Feel free to ask me. I'm happy to talk about it in the comments. And I also love if anyone has any comments about Diablo 5, about Decker Kane, about World of Warcraft, Ste,

38:57 feel free to talk about that in the comments, too. I look forward to that.

39:01 I'm excited. All right. Thank you for doing this. And uh again, I always thank you every week because again, you never know. Um so yeah, I'm looking forward to next week already. I'm sure I'll have more questions for you.

39:10 Sounds good. Take care, Mitchell. Bye. Bye.