Broken Meeple Podcast 136 - UK Games Expo 2026 Review

0:27 Hi everyone, welcome to bro episode a bit earlier than I thought I would honestly cuz I wasn't certain that I'd be able to record one today and I got to admit you know minor headache and it is still quite warm although it's not quite as uh crazy hot as it was last week so that is a benefit and of course to record a podcast I have to shut the windows and the doors which means warm you know a little bit but uh I thought I'd get it out today because after all this is when I would normally record a podcast and for a lot of people you know you would expect that I be at the UK Games Expo at the moment, but I opted to do two days only this time. And I think that was one of the best decisions I actually ever made cuz honestly, there's not enough at the expo to keep me going for 3 days. And I sort of thought to myself, well, hang on a minute. If I just go as a normal press person, then I usually always by early Saturday, mid Saturday, have done all I need to do in terms of games and meetings and everything. So all the rest of that time is just social, but I'm socializing while I'm there anyway. And there's open gaming for that. So, okay, fine. And then what happens is that on Sunday, I wake up and check out and then I'm at the con till about 3ish. Then I need to get home because I do evening Valheim stuff, you know, with mates, which starts at 7:00. So I want to get home, unpack, and, you know, get some dinner and stuff. So I'm leaving by 3, right?

1:52 So, I'm only doing a part day and the trade halls finish at 4, I think, on the Sunday anyway. So they finish a bit earlier, but I just don't feel like I get enough out of the Sunday to justify another, you know, £150 of accommodation, fuel, parking, food, coffee, you know, drink the works just to just to do a third day where most of the time around the con I'm just aimlessly wandering and like looking for an excuse to pay money to buy something just so I've got something to put on my sofa and say, "Here's my board game hall." you know, it's it just didn't feel like it was a a worthwhile thing. So, I decided I was just going to do two days this time. And oh, that was a that was a good move. That was a good move. Good move. Because I now have today to relax. Is I got to get the podcast done.

2:41 I got to go shopping. I need to get back to the gym pronto cuz I am horrendously fat right now. Um, I need to obviously unpack everything from the bags. I need to sort out the games that I have acquired, you know, board game stuff. Uh, I've still got Lands of Evershade on my table. I want to start on the uh, uh, shall we say, the uh, Expert Adventure at some point soon and see what that's like. I also need to binge watch a lot more Spider Noir. I've only watched two episodes and there's eight of them. So, I need to watch another six of them. So, can I do that today? All that before Valheim starts. So, uh, and then work tomorrow. So, yeah, there's quite a lot to do, but I think it's still better than being at the expo and just not really being productive, shall we say. So, on that front, this episode will be about giving my thoughts on the expo itself, as well as, you know, some sort of games I've played, what I think, that kind of thing. And I'm going to sort of categorize things in here a little bit to make it a bit easier to time stamp, shall we say, because otherwise it'll be a bit tricky. But, uh, you know, I'm back. I say, small headache. I think that's mostly dehydration. The heat really does get to me and this is not going to help. But, um, you know, I'll be fine. I've got drink. I've got chamomile tea. So, we will be fine. And I don't I don't think this episode will be crazy long.

3:58 You know, famous last words, but you know, we'll see how we go. So, first up, uh well, just trying to think. Did I overall enjoy the expo? Yeah, overall I did enjoy it, but I'd be lying if I said it was like amazeballs, you know, like, oh yeah, this was like the best place to be. You know, I'm, you know, I wish I'd stayed an extra day or anything like that. It's like, no, I don't I'm not thinking that at all because the expo has it's it's improved in some ways, but it's also downgraded in many others. And I think the areas that it's downgrading in are starting to hit home, especially when you factor in the everinccreasing cost to go there. I mean, this is just Birmingham, okay? This isn't exactly the holiday resort capital of the world, okay? You know, or anywhere really. And you know the prices we are expected to pay to attend, to go, to feed ourselves, to get enough water just to survive, you know, to to basically do normal things for this convention on top of buying games at for the most part inflated prices to if you just bought them online at a separate date is a little bit on the um yeah, is this overly worth it side? But uh I'm just trying to share my screen at the moment and get started.

5:20 But we'll cross that bridge in a minute. So uh dashboard just very quickly. Channel updates 27580. Uh the lands of Evershade is simply uh is um uh what you call it? Climbed up quite a bit actually. Uh we have got uh what's that? Um there we go. Yeah, 7,000 7 and a half thousand views for Lands of Evershade since the last thing. And yeah, there hasn't been a lot of content because well, uh, that's basically the way it works. You know, we there's there hasn't been a lot to review. I haven't had time to do loads of top 10 lists and stuff because I've been prepping for the um, uh, shall we say the the expo, but I've also been prepping for, you know, doing a lot of stuff at work. Work is a very busy period for April and May. It was pretty painful. uh you know a good what I I still love my job don't get me wrong when I say painful but yeah it was a busy period and so a lot of time had to be devoted to my work but uh yeah um that's always a good thing. I've just noticed they put estimated revenue now on the videos for the on that didn't used to be on this page uh but I mean yeah you can have a look at it there.

6:26 This is what I'm telling you videos do not make a lot of money on YouTube unless you are a big-time creator. So if people people out there who think that we get like we make a living on this kind of stuff you know really easily trust us as a small creator it's pittance it's peanuts okay it really makes no difference and doesn't mean you know it claims 21 was it revenue of from all your active ways to earn subject to adjustments so this isn't even like fixated this is literally estimated this is a 7 and a half thousand view video which for a game review I've done is bloody good right and it says estimated revenue about 21 quid. 21 quid. 21 quid does not even cover a month subscription to Adobe Suite, you know, the video editing software or whatever, that is not even half the cost of Adobe Suite a month. Okay, so anybody who thinks that, oh yeah, we make we make a living out of this stuff, you could not be more wrong.

7:22 But yeah, not much to say. Lands of Evershade review, very popular. It did spawn a bit of controversy with myself, Mark Dainty, Paul Grogan, and the rest about people coming on and commenting on their videos about we don't like short, we don't like long videos. We want to have we, you know, we have the attention span of a goldfish and therefore we only like to absorb videos that are 3 minutes long, you know, that don't actually give a review. They just tell us our game's amazing that we've already bought. Oh god, I could go into a rant about this and I probably will. I think the next uh podcast topic in two weeks will be uh probably based on short and long form content. So um yeah. Yeah, being prepared for that assuming I remember. Maybe the topic will change, but certainly that's the one I've got in mind. It's just you might have to wait two weeks for that rant. Yeah, not much else to say. Um that's basically it. Not much has happened. There'll be more content. There'll be some UK Games Expo stuff to get done. Uh you know, a top 10 list. You know, it would be nice to do a I think the next one in line probably does need to be a top 10 overrated games list. Uh, of which I would need to restrict it to the last I would say 5 years, 3 years, maybe. It depends when I did the last video because obviously I don't want to overlap. Um, so we'll look into that eventually. But, okay, let's just crack on with the expo. So, the expo Birmingham, you know, free days, expensive days, very expensive days. Um, I've done preview episodes and review episodes for the expo all the time every year. So, if you want a general gist of what the expo is, I think by now you

8:53 already kind of know. Not to mention, you can kind of look at the website to uh deal with that. But, it's basically just a case of it's a trade fair. It's a trade fair for 3 days. Uh, you can go there, meet some creators, meet uh, you know, meet a ton of publishers and it's very indie focused. Uh, it's very much indie publishers. So, we're talking uh like self-contain, self-designed games, self-published people, you know, people trying to get their first dream job game out, you know, it's very small scale. Yeah, there are some big names there. I mean, there are Portal and Cold Spring and Asbay and all that, but you know, and various other big names obviously, but yeah, there's not that many of them. I mean, we didn't even see Board and Dice there. You know, Board and Dice were barely there. Mine Clash didn't even have a very big booth this year compared to previous years. So, I mean, yeah, there there's definitely a reduction in bigname publishers there, and I think they're starting to sort of get the idea that it's their games don't sell as well in the expo compared to places like Gen Con and Essen because the expo is not really full of diehard gamers. It's more that it's full of general gamers. So, a lot of these people might be looking for family weight stuff. They might even be in different hobbies. It's a very diverse convention because on the one hand you have uh some you know people playing board games but on the other hand you have RPGs, you have all the dice stuff, you have arts and crafts, you have miniatures, war games, the tournaments.

10:18 There's a lot of different hobby interests at the games expo compared to a lot of others and it means that the audience is a bit more widespread. So not everybody there is buying the latest like Galactic Cruise for example. Galactic Cruise has been out for several years and most people have got it if they're going to have it. But even then, most people aren't coming to the UK Games Expo thinking they want a game as big and grandiose as Galactic Cruise. So, there's there's definitely a bit of a shift in audience expectations, but it's uh mainly I go there as a social thing. Yeah, because the Expo does not release uh a lot of new games there. Most of these games are ones that are just filling on Kickstarter or will be on Kickstarter eventually or they've been released for years in which case I've already seen, played, reviewed, rate, ranted, whatever about them in the past. So, what exactly am I gaining out of it? Not a lot. So, I go there mainly for the social thing. I get to meet a bunch of publisher people that I've not seen in a while, meet other creators, uh fans can come up and say hi. I've always been very grateful when people do that.

11:19 So you know and a decent chunk of you did you know um surprised me you know with hi how you do love your work or you know played some games with me now and again. So it's like yeah brilliant thanks for uh making making me feel you know still needed in this uh crazy industry world that we seem to have uh entered into lately. But uh yeah so it's like I say it's generally an enjoyable experience but I think scrapping Sunday was a good move. I mean, alternatively, I could have done Friday and Sunday and skipped Saturday because Saturday is cues everywhere. It's, you know, you got loads of people. It's a bit intensive. But then that would mean I'd have to stay up in Birmingham for three days. And even then, if I skip Saturday, what would I do? There's nothing to do in Birmingham. So, it's it's not like I could really entertain myself for the day. Maybe there's not even any mates I know around there either. So yeah, I'd just be bored out of my head trying to find something to do on the Saturday. So in the end, I go up for the press event on the Thursday and then stay for Friday and then I come back late Saturday and I think I left about 6:00. Um I want to say about 5:30 6. Yeah, I left just just before the trade fair was shutting about 5:30 I left and I went to a friend of mine was staying at their parents house uh in the local village and uh we basically just went out for a Chinese and um by the time I finished that drove home and I was home before 10:30 or something. So it's like great I had time to chill a bit and go to bed and worry about all this stuff in the morning. So

12:50 I can feel more refreshed for work on Monday. So I think this was a good move and I might actually keep doing this going forward. It certainly also saves a bit of money on the cost of staying at the expo. Uh the press event, uh press event, I uh went to that one and this is basically where every Tom, Dick, and Harry, doesn't matter if you're press or not, can go and see um what stuff people are showing off at the expo. The reason I say every Tom, Dick, and Harry is because I don't know what it is with this expo, but they don't seem to have realized the concept that a press event should be press because, you know, you are told, right, meet up at this place and then, you know, when we open the open gaming halls, you'll be taken to where the press event is. But the problem is is that the press event is in the same location as all the open gaming. So, everybody goes in at the same time and they don't check passes or anything. So, anybody could walk around the press event. You don't even have to be press. So, what the hell is the point of it? And it actually begs the question, what is the hell are the point of a press pass? You know, I've had other creators talk to me about this, and they're absolutely right. You know, the press pass really doesn't gain you anything anymore. You know, you you save about what, 50 quid on the ticket because it's effectively a free ticket.

13:59 And I honestly that is it. That is all you get because you don't have any major like rights to the press event because anybody could just waltz in there. It wouldn't really matter. And you know, especially if you're an exhibitor, you could just waltz in there like no problem at all. And that's it. There's no other benefit. You don't get to go into the uh colony any sooner. You still got to wait outside the doors for 9:00 a.m. Um you don't get any extra shows. You don't get any extra like VIP room or anything like that. You you are literally just there to say 50 quid on a ticket. That's it. That's all the press is. And for that, you have to put out loads of preview content. You have to do social media with various hashtags. We have to do post review content, which I'm doing obviously here. But yeah, why am I bothering to go there as the press each year? Why don't I just go there? I mean, maybe I should just help out somebody on an exhibitor and like not even do demos. I could literally just say, you know what, I'll join you on the Thursday and I'll help you set up the booth, right? Cuz that's a massive deal for them. And that would get you an exhibitor pass. And that is in lightning like lightning terms way better than a press pass. But the thing is is that honestly, like I say, you don't get any extra benefit for being a consumer, for being a press over consumer, apart from saving 50 quid on the press on the ticket. That's it. And you got to put in all those extra effort. So why the hell do we do this each year? I'm not entirely sure. Granted, it's a very easy way to save 50 quid, but you got to put in a lot more effort on the side. It just seems to be the cheapest form of

15:29 marketing um ever because all the um expo basically does is pays 50 quid and that's it. 50 quid for a person to go around and do all their marketing for them and they get to do this for every single person who's on the press. And given that the way the board game industry is now, there are actually there seems to be fewer YouTubers around and a crap ton of Instagrammers. Man, the amount of like people I'm seeing going around the press area, right? And they're not on YouTube, they're all Instagram. You know, Instagrammer seems to have taken over as like where loads of people, particularly women. Actually, a lot of women tend to be Instagram creators rather than YouTube creators, which is interesting. But yeah, you go on Instagram, there are so many channels that are literally just here's a bunch of photos and, you know, a sparkling personality and some reals and that's a new board game channel. And there's so many of them. Granted, I don't do reals and that. I ain't got time to mess around with that, you know. I just put up pictures on Instagram, use it as a social thing and to put nice photos and do some discussions, but reals, they do take a bit of effort cuz you got to you got to film multiple clips and then you got to somehow piece them together with witchcraft. I don't know how it works with uh that. I mean, I'm not sitting down every time I do a post on Instagram. I am not going to be like trying to collect together 20 movie clips into Adobe Premiere Pro, create a video and upload it. I mean, I think it's easier to do it. You're meant to do

17:00 it either through Instagram or some other thing. I don't know. I don't understand reals and honestly, I don't tend to watch them anyway. So, yeah, whatever. Um, but yeah, just the sheer amount of Instagrammers, it's kind of crazy. So, that's just the way uh the industry has kind of gone. They're finding more and to be honest, they get a lot of people know who they are. So, is Instagram going to take over YouTube as the primary means of uh exposure when it comes to being a creator? Who knows? I mean, it won't pay as well, but um well, YouTube doesn't pay at all pretty much anyway if you're a small creator, but um you know, compared to Instagram, which I don't think pays any in any way, shape, or form, you know, it's yeah, it's a very different world. We uh currently are. God blam me. I am sweating already.

17:49 Crazy. All right. But yeah, the press event was a dud. It really was a dud because there was very few big names there at all. Mostly it was indie people and I just couldn't find anything I liked. It just felt like such a let down. And I'm just like, this is a press event. You would think the big names would be wanting to be there to show off their games, but no, they just they just don't seem to care anymore about it. And it means that we go there and when I talk to people around they're just saying like, "Oh, this was rubbish. There's nothing here to really look at or anything." And yeah, the press event is starting to become a bit of a farce. You know, usually I use it as my means to say, "Right, this is what I'm going to focus on when I go around the halls and stuff, but it confirmed nothing for me." Like nothing was added to the list for me to say, "Oh yeah, I'm going to check this out." And nothing was taken off as I don't sound much good anymore.

18:38 No, whatever I had planned or ideas for pre going to the show were exactly the same after the press event. It did nothing for me. Is it worth going on the Thursday night just to go to that? Probably not. But then to be honest, I wouldn't want to travel to the expo on the Friday morning. So yeah, I think the press event is kind of a must. But yeah, it's it's degrading in that respect. Okay, so I mean in terms of going around the expo itself, you know, like navigation, they opened it up to five halls and that was definitely a boost. I mean the fifth hall was basically just tickets and bring and buy and I don't go anywhere near the bron. I mean it's full of scalpers. It is cues. It's a system that isn't particularly robust in terms of getting your games in and out. So I avoid it like the plague. So don't ask me about that. But yeah, it was good to have those in a separate hall because then having four halls dedicated to the expo. One was basically open gaming and tournaments. So it keeps everything nestled in there. And having hall two, hall three, hall 3a and four, so technically four halls out of six um you know dedicated to games and that was pretty good. I think there was some space in hall four that wasn't being used um for whatever reason. I'm not sure why, but the but generally yeah that's a decent amount of space and it did feel more spacious. It felt like they widened a lot of the walkways and even though on Saturday there was still a lot of people and even on Friday there was a lot of people. I mean Jesus I've never seen that many people there on a Friday. Um they they it felt more spacious. The air flow was a bit better and you know not not every bit of the

20:09 expo halls is is easy to get the air con. Some are better than others. I think if you're close to the fans you will feel the breeze and the air con and blummy that was needed. It was hot outside. It was a bit better indoors, but in certain areas of the halls, you could just be unlucky and not be near the fans. And at that point, you're roasting. So, I feel sorry for any exhibitor who was unlucky enough to be in that situation cuz I did come across a few. But, uh, yeah. Um, and you know, there was some nice exhibitors there, some nice demos. Um, uh, very nice ladies, uh, you know, who have taught me some games there. So, yeah, um, just generally pretty good on that front. But, yeah, I I think it was more spacious. It was I think the widening of the walkways meant that it was busy, but I didn't feel like I couldn't get from A to B. And the great sort of thing with this layout, which is basically like an N shape, is that the best tip I can say is that if you know you need to go from one hall a decent distance to another publisher, then consider whether it's actually quicker to simply just walk outside the hall and go via the main foyer into the next hall. I did that a lot. I had to go from like, right, I need to go from hall three at the left hand side, you know, close to the hall two to all the way to hall four to go to another publisher. Well, why go through all the halls? Why not just exit hall three, walk across the foyer, go straight into hall four around the back end and come around, you know, and that shortens your uh walking time like crazy. Yeah, you won't see everything on route, but you know, you've got other times you can do that. You know, you need to focus on where you need to get to. So, yeah, I just found that quite cool. Of course, this also didn't mean that uh with more people meant that the

21:39 NEC uh services in general were pretty dire. I mean, cues for the water dispenser constantly. Cues for the bar at the Weather Spoons, I couldn't even I mean, I did it on one day by fluke and even then I still had to queue for a little bit for it. But on Saturday, you couldn't even get to the bar without like a 45 minute wait time just to order like a refillable coffee. I mean, it was insane. And the supermarket, the longest thing there, massive queue just to enter the actual store. Everything was cues. And I said that normally you get there an hour early to park in the east car parks. That worked before. I had to get there at least an hour 20 minutes earlier to avoid the massive cues. First day I got caught in them for a little bit. Not too bad. The second day was better. But yeah, that was like an hour and a quarter, hour 20 minutes early. So 7:40 I am at the expo.

22:36 Okay, it doesn't even start till 9 and the traffic is already being funneled through into these car parks. It is getting to a point where I think they need to seriously think about capping the numbers. They are obsessed with trying to say we all the third biggest air, you know, convention in the world. Look at our numbers. We're growing each year. You don't physically have the capacity to do it. You know, you can't. you are bottlenecking all the stuff in the NEC which is a pain in the freaking ass. You know, yes, you can make more stuff in the halls. Yes, you can have an extra hall and say, "Yeah, we can fit thousand more people in there." But if all the services around said visit shut down quite crazy because everything is just too crammed, then it sucks. And the NEC center does not have the capacity to to facilitate thousands and thousands and thousands of people at once with their amenities. It just doesn't. I mean, they should have really I mean, the NEC center should have prepared for stuff like this. I mean, you're you're a center that's all about hosting giant functions. You would think that you would actually have more than one restaurant, more than one bar, more than one coffee place, whatever, and be able to try and do something about it. But no, it feels like there's a lot of space in the NEC that's just not used by anything useful. But yeah, I mean, I think the Games Expo needs to consolidate now. I think they look, you've got the entire center opened up.

24:02 You have, you know, reach the pinnacle of attendees. Don't raise it anymore. In fact, I would say contract it down. You really don't need this many people wandering the halls. It's kind of crazy, but yeah. So, it definitely was a bit on the busy side. Okay. Well, let's talk about uh various types of games and experiences and stuff like that. And again, I'm going to try and categorize these a little bit for you. So, um this will require the use of board game geek. So, let's get to board game geek up. Come on. Uh where did I put the solo thing? Right. So, there we go. Board Game Geek. Oh, for Christ sake. Look, seriously, I got nothing against this brother's murf, but can you put other people on this dashboard here? I'm kind of sick and tired of the fact that Board Game Geek is literally just Board Game TV or whatever it's called and nothing else. This is all I see every time in the dashboard. Brothers Smurf Top 10 something, you know, nobody else. Why not put some other creators here? Why not put some other small creators here?

24:59 You know, do something for the industry as a whole, not just your best friends, okay? This is not like Spider-Man and his amazing friends, okay? It's like seriously, we can, you know, do a bit more from the community. I am sick and tired of seeing nothing but brothers murf and game night as all the things that are featured on this thing. I mean, for Christ's sake, you know, bias is an understatement. Anyway, um so what was I going to do? Yes. So, first thing I'm going to mention is uh one to look out for. So, this is where I'm Well, I mean, one problem with the Expo that I will mention briefly is that the the Expo is very much about games that are coming out later. So, this is a big problem with the expo. It's there's very little you can buy that is new.

25:46 Most of it, like 90% of what you see there is stuff that has been there for years, in which case it's nothing new or it's coming out on Kickstarter later this year or something. And it's just sometimes I just want to go to a convention and be actually be able to buy something that I like the look of, not just have it as a giant advert. So, it's kind of annoying, but suffice to say, a lot of this stuff isn't something you can buy right now. But here's one to look out for. So, if we're going to go for a Kickstarter project that and I will talk about more of them, but if we're talking about my key Kickstarter project where I'm like, you might want to give this one a look. I'm thinking of Whisperwood. Whisperwood was Cardboard Academy. And this was only a 45minute demo. It was entirely scripted. So, I didn't really get to make my own decisions, but we had one of the uh people involved, designers, uh teaching us. Um, and you know, it was a interesting game. Bag building game, two to four players, druids, uh, harnessing the power of the elements, la magic. I mean, whatever theme, it's going to make it look gorgeous. Now, there's no real sort of imagery for this other than the uh uh what you call it, the you know, the artwork, which like I say, the artwork is going to look fantastic.

26:55 Although, if you give me a second, if I can pull up my Google photos, I can actually show some stuff of the game. But basically, it's a bag builder. So, you know, you put tokens, you take out tokens of different elements, and you put them on your board with all these different actions, and as a result, it allows you to do um, you know, various types of actions throughout the game. So, hang on. I've just got it. Boom. Here we go. So, so it does look good. And this is like still in prototype stage. So, it's still, you know, it's going to have like stupidly big miniature pieces. It's going to have loads of wooden stuff, cardboard, you know, upgraded resources. is I mean blammy if they put the effort into this Kickstarter this thing is going to be a gorgeous one and Cardboard Academy knows how to make stuff look gorgeous but you know you've got this map here with you know your people that you're moving around corrupted areas you're trying to sort of purify the forest areas with the use of uh cool animal creatures. You've got these golems which do special abilities and special powers as soon as you meet them and they will change from game to game. You've got all these different animals that you can have um as allies and stuff. Whoop. And your board. Loads of these different actions.

28:04 So, I mean, like, put a green mana here, you can do this action. Put a blue mana here, you can do this action, and some more. You can upgrade these actions. These will flip over. You've got goals. This is a big sandbox game. I mean, there's free tracks there that you level up depending on which animals you attune with more. And I think I only needed two photos of this, but yeah. So, it's a solid game from the mechanics I was doing, but it is quite a lot. There's a decent amount of rules and there's a decent amount of uh stuff options that you can do, but this is a sandbox feeling Euro, so this is definitely in my wheelhouse. It's going to look absolutely gorgeous. I mean, the theme is whatever, but it's going to have like really nice artwork and, you know, really cool components, a lot of variety from game to game. As long as you don't make this game stupidly long, given this is a baguer after all. Do not create another Wonderlands war scenario. Um, but I have high hopes for this one. I'm going to look forward to see how this develops, how it's tweaked, how they streamline certain elements. It's definitely, I think, one of the more ambitious projects Cardboard Academy has done. This is definitely on a weight level above uh Flamecraft and Critter's Kitchen. I mean, this is easily a midweight game, if not potentially a heavy game. So, this is uh certainly um yeah, definitely going to be more than they're used to. But yeah, one to look out for. I think when this comes out on Kickstarter later in the year, this is going to be popular. I put money on it now. This will be one of the most popular like big name Kickstarters that we're going to see in the coming months.

29:35 And I look forward to seeing what the finished products like uh and like giving my thoughts on it. So, okay. So, we got that one. Uh let's talk uh let's go down. Let's go to disappointments. So these are games where you know not necessarily I knew before the expo but more that um you know like before the expo I or when I got to the expo it's like oh this sounds interesting. Let me give me a try or I've heard of this game. I didn't get to play it before but let's play it now and see if it's any good. I got two for this category. So, we're going to start off with a game called Circadians. I think it's called Circadian or Circadia something. Um, not to be confused with Cascadia. Uh, Circadia 2026. Yeah, this is a 2026 game actually. So, this one is uh from Hashi Hashi Hash Hayashi. I can't pronounce it, but you know, people will be familiar with that designer because this designer has done quite a few games that are biggestish names. I mean, Yokohama, Trains, and Railway Boom. Now, granted, I'm not the biggest fan of Yokohama. I think Trains is okay, but I'd rather play Dominion and stuff, and I don't like Railway Boom. So, yeah, he's not my favorite designer in the world, but you know, he's very popular. Um, but this is a set collection game where players gather spirit creatures to claim habitats. So, how does this work? It's very minimalistic with its art. And I believe I do have a photo of this

31:05 somewhere. So, let's have a quick gander. Come on. So, key. There we go. Boom. So, this one is basically a game. It's a card game where you're trying to provide these habitats and you need cards and stacks. You have free stacks in front of you that you can build up. A bit like Ohanomy, if you remember like that. And the idea is that you have to manage your stacks as well as your hand. Because the way it is that you have a hand limit and you can play as many cards down into these stacks providing they are equal to or equal to or more than the number that's already in the stack. So if you've already got ones down, you can put any number down. But if you've got threes like I've got here, the next one you can put in the stack has to be the same creature but also three and above. Um, and there's considerably more of the lower value cards than there is the higher ones. But you can put down as many cards into all these stacks as long as they have the matching creature blah blah. Um, providing that you meet the number requirement. And and if they're the same number, like if all these were freeze and they were in my hand, I could put all of them down at once. But the number of cards you draw from this river over here is equal to the number on the card you were putting down. So if you put down twos, you only draw two cards. You could put down a bunch of ones, you only draw one card. You could put down a single five, but then you get to draw the entire river into your hand. So, it's this management game of your hand and your stacks to basically buy these little cards in the middle and get points first to 15 triggers the end game almost like a splender type thing. But the added problem is the circadia part of it. You know, when you buy a card, you start off on whichever cycle it is,

32:37 day or night. The next one you buy has to be the next cycle. So, you have to alternate uh day, night, day, night, day, night with your point cards. Another thing to consider. And of course, everybody else is buying from the shared display, nicking stuff in the river. So, you've got the tension there. Now, the game is actually fine. I have no major problems with it except for one. And it's not that the game is bad. I don't think the game is bad at all. I think it was actually decent, but the player scaling is problematic. That river um over there with the five cards, that does not scale based on player count. This game has no player scaling and that is a huge problem because this game can go from two to five. We played it with four. Those river cards basically get wiped multiple times by the time it is your turn. There is no point staring at what those cards are until it is your turn. They just change fundamentally too much. The idea that they even put five players on this box is beyond moronic. There is no way I will ever play this with five. I mean, the chaos factor in this game would go to ridiculous levels. Okay, some card comes out, you got Oh yeah, finally I can get some green fours. That's what I need. And they're gone. All right, blue one and they're gone. Oh, and they're gone. Oh, they've come out again and they're gone. And they're gone. And they're gone. Oh, now it's my turn.

33:57 Right. And oh, I'm left with crap. Oh, I'll just I'll draw this rubbish into my hand or something. And this is the problem. Five cards in the river is not good enough for a high player count. Now, with two and three players, I could see this being a lot better, particularly with two, because two, you're going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. So, the river is not going to fluctuate that much, and you can do a little bit screwage with the other player. Three would add just a tiny bit of extra chaos, you know, but maybe keep the market flowing a little bit better. So, two and three players, I could actually see this being a halfdecent card game. But with four, and certainly with five, I think it's too much chaos in this game. And it's not like it's a game I'd want to play over and over again. I mean, the concept is nice, but it's not that amazing. It's like, okay, this is neat. Uh, there a similar thing in Arctic, the card game that's on my shelf, you know, with the whole hand size thing and hand drawing.

34:51 I kind of prefer Arctic to this one really, but I mean, I could sort of chop top and change. I mean, Arctic's gone down for me a little bit as time I think I might have rated it a bit too highly when I first did it, but you know, it's still a decent game and this one would probably be on a similar par, but that river is a problem and that disappointed me. I was hoping that this game would be like a a maze balls because the concept sounded great, but I just don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. I don't know. Or it just doesn't have the longevity. Like there's no variety in this game. Nothing's really going to change in terms of game arc. It's going to be the same thing each time. So, it's like it's not bad. It's not bad, but it was overall a little bit of a disappointment. All right, the other disappointment is this one. And this one is a shame. This is Bohemians by uh Portal Games. I didn't get a chance to play this at Essen last year.

35:39 I mean, I couldn't get into a demo and it sold out really quickly. So, I'm like, "Okay, fine. Not going to worry about this until like at least next year." Mhm. Now, Bohemians is a light deck builder. It's also about art theme. And bear in mind, I liked um their Predator Porter one ages ago, which was like gorgeous looking and about fashion. Yes, the mechanics weren't executed as well as they could have been, but theme-wise and feel-wise and lookswise, oh man, it was great. And it was a decent enough game. It just needed some streamlining in places and some better rule books. But this one, I thought, okay, I like Deck Builder. You draw everything you know about deck builders is the same in this. No differences except that you play these cards in a row on your board. The more symbols that you can connect, like the more links or whatever, the more inspiration you get, which lets you buy more cards, which can be either more cards for your deck in terms of these ones you play in your row, or these muses down the bottom, which basically give you special abilities or powers, providing you put them in the right slots, and they might in might influence by what card is above. And basically, you're buying these achievement cards uh if you can get enough inspiration. They get progressively higher as people buy them, and you can upgrade your deck, and that's about and you got a little side currency you can use. I mean, it's very straightforward in terms of his execution and the effects on the cards aren't particularly uh complicated either. Here's the problem. Um 60 minutes on the box I think is a little optimistic. I think this game actually quite drags when you got a lot of people playing. But here's two big issues.

37:08 Firstly, those achievements. That's how you win. You get a certain amount of those achievements and you just instantly win. But that's it. That is the be all or end all the game. And it all deres from putting these links together. And deck builders have a inherent problem of the luck of the draw because yeah, as much as I like deck builders, there is a luck of the draw problem. Here it is outright critical because you have to put um you know, you have to get this inspiration up high because if you can't get your inspiration up high and let's say let's say you have a turn where you've got like good cards in your deck and you just draw a crap hand, then you can't buy the achievement. Somebody gets lucky, gets a really good hand, buys the achievement. It now makes it harder for you to get any more achievements, which means it is punishing in the way that if you can't get lucky enough to get the hand you need, you are just your life is made worse and you just feel like you're not really achieving anything cuz you don't score points for anything else you put in your deck. There's no other point scoring in this game. It is get those achievements or you're sad. And so it puts a massive incentive to get the early ones cuz if you get the early ones when they're a lot cheaper, then you've already got a head start and it's really hard for anybody to catch you up. So I just got to a point where I was just unlucky with my hands and I just felt like I couldn't do anything of meaningful. Second problem is these um uh what you call it the uh up hardship cards or whatever. Basically these are I mean this is quite funny with the names on here. I mean I've got claustrophobia in here. There is actually a hardship card called syphilis. Yeah, this thing really delves into some weird aspects of

38:39 the art culture, but the idea is is that these come out of your deck and every time you draw one of these as well as a muse, you do get to draw another card. So, you always have five of these colored cards to work with. So, that is nice. But the hardships basically inflict a penalty on you as soon as they come out for that turn. And these penalties range from I don't need to care that much. They're easily disposed of to these are outright crippling. I mean, this one here, you know, is if I don't get free locks in my display, I suffer like I have to draw more hardship, so it spirals out of control. Well, great. If only my strategy involved me building up keys. It doesn't. It involve me getting a lot of hearts and eyes. So, if I draw that heart, that basically is just constantly looping and generating more hardships. And you also have this tile. Uh, you can't see it in this picture. Uh, somebody else has used it. Um, no. I can't see anyone else has used it. It's a tile that you have that you put in one of the slots on that was normally for a card and it's your job. And if you don't put one in there, then basically you draw a hardship at the end of your turn.

39:40 So, it's a case that you got to balance whether you're going to use four cards or three cards in a tile. That's a decent decision to make. But the problem is is that drawing these hardships, they just you so bad. And in a game where you're already relying on luck of the draw to get a decent hand, to have these hardships basically go, "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think I've got a good hand now. Oh, the hardship means that I can only use three cards this round instead of four. You cannot get a decent amount of inspiration with any free cards, especially when you also need to um you know, put a tile down as well for a job. I mean, it is it is just such a pain. Um these hardships are crazy nasty and you know, it's really hard to get rid of them because there is just not enough in this game that allows you to trash stuff out of your deck. I mean, I've got a card here that does, but Florence here, where reject is trash, right? Trash one of these. That means the hardship that's annoying me has to come out at the exact same time as Florence does because if it doesn't, I can't do it. Florence doesn't stay out in play. So, I could draw Florence when I get no hardships, and Florence's ability does not work.

40:42 There's just far too much in this game that is so dependent on the stars aligning that even for a deck builder, it's not got enough mitigation to deal with. And you know, some of the best deck builders, you know, manage to give you some mitigation. Runeststones and Fort uh you know, there's some decent, you know, decent mitigation to make up for the card draw luck. But there are some games like Dune Imperium, you know, the do Imperium thing where they combine it with the work of placement. I mean, if you don't draw the right cards and do an imperium, your turn sucks because you can't go to the spaces you want to go. You can't generate enough combat or money and it just sucks. And in Dune Imperium, the fact that they govern so much of your turn means that without mitigation, that game really suffers for it. Um, yeah, fight me. Um, but the, you know, with here, it's just such another pain. Uh, the other problem is that you don't really have a lot of decision- making to make. I mean, the only real decision that you're making is uh the uh choice of cards that you buy and that's kind of it really because honestly, you have your five cards that are these colored ones to work with and you shove them down and then that's it. I mean, you just put them so that they generate the most symbols and with maybe the purple and the green and that on this board. It's just like it really isn't that much of a decision. I mean, you either drew a lot of cards that work together, in which case you put them down that way, or you didn't and your hand sucks. So there's not a lot of decisions in this game to really make.

42:02 It's just does your hand did your hand happen to link up well? No. Well, sucks to be you then. Um and the other problem there was another problem. Ah what didn't I also like? Um I mean it is simple to teach and the rules are very straightforward. So there is that aspect but yeah the hardships. Oh yeah this whole storytelling thing. So this thing like gets you telling a story about your day as being an artist, you know, an aspiring artist and that they sort of encourage, oh, you're telling a story and there can be some funny stories that you tell. So you like the teacher was I think the guy was involved with the game itself, you know, was like telling us to read them out and do all this. That is fun the first time you do it. After that, it gets incredibly tedious and cringy and I just could not be bothered to read them after a while. It's like, look, it means nothing. I am just counting up what symbols I have on my board and seeing if I can do anything this turn. Oh dear, I got too low. I can't do jack. And oh look, you bought an achievement cuz you got lucky and generated 14 inspiration one turn. I drew bad cards and I can't generate more than six. Well, sucks to me. And you expect me to get into this whole thing of reading the stories out each time? I mean, it works a couple of times, but after that, you just get sick and tired of it. So, that was getting on my nerves as well. This game is nice and honest.

43:20 It's it's well, it's nice in that it looks good. It's so charming. It's so nice. It is gorgeous art. It is a gorgeous colorful look and it's a shame that it just doesn't keep to the time length on the box and it has so many of these other problems. I've seen Dicear and a few other people start rating this highly, and I honestly think they were drawn too much by the color because I think these flaws cannot be overlooked. I think they're overlooking them far too much. Meeple Mountain did a pretty good written review of this one where they have similar feelings to me where this feels like a all form but no substance type of game and you're really not left with a lot of substance once you peel away the nice aesthetics. So yeah, this was a disappointment. It's cheap, it's light, but sadly not quick enough and sadly not robust enough. Anyway, I need to move on. Next one. Uh hot selling craziness. I have only played 10 minutes of this game. Okay, I put 10 minutes of it at Grid Con. It's got potential, but I really don't know why this game is currently the crazy hotness at the moment. That's a different game. We'll come back to that. So, this one hot selling one of the convention.

44:29 What the hell is it about this game that makes this so sought after? I literally do not know. I played 10 minutes of it. That's all I've done so far. So, I'm going to obviously play it, review it, do it properly, and find out for you guys, okay? And I'm going to be brutally honest whether it's good or bad. But crying out loud, at Essen, this thing sold out before I'd even heard it existed at the expo every day. The publishers sold out of all their copies within the first few hours. Water St. Law, maybe one other supplier, a friend of mine got really lucky on another supplier, you know, found a copy of it, but they had copies. They sold out within the first like hour every day. I had to camp by Water St. on the Saturday morning and grab a copy off the shelf before other people while other people were also doing that and then queue up at 9:00 a.m. to get that, you know, for 9:00 a.m. to buy it. Trust me. I mean, I would have loved to have got a review copy of this, but I don't think anybody in the world would have given me one.

45:28 Uh, not even Mighty Boards themselves, cuz let's face it, they're going to sell. Why would you waste your money? Um, this thing is insane. You know, you want to ask me what was the bestselling game, it's got to be this one. It has to be. This thing just could not stay on the shelf long enough. Is it any good? I honestly don't know. I mean, it's it gives me vibes of Walking in Barano. So, you've got these cards, you're looking at like flowers and colors and stuff. And it's all about left and right. So, it's not like building a tier column like you do in Walking in Barano. It's more a street. So, you build a street and you look at your left and right and there's some nice little uh Easter eggs and stuff like that. I mean, what the hell is this going to do for TMBB's um tourist industry? Seriously, everybody's now going to want to visit TMBI to find out what is so special about TMB. As far as I'm aware, it's just a small little fishing village in in on the coast of Wales. So, is it really that great? I mean, does anybody out there live in Tempi who watches this show? If so, could you please put in the comments what is it about TM? Is there something unique to Tempi? Is it a history thing?

46:32 Is it a primary fishing port? Is it just pleasant and nice to look at? Tell me because I don't know why that was picked as a for this game and I don't know what its unique selling point is, but it's, you know, it's got a lot of setup to this game. I remember the setup taking quite a while and I could see the AP value and certainly you end up with a pretty hefty streak. So, you got to do a lot of scoring at the end. So, there's there's things in this game that I do have reservations about already, you know, from what I'm seeing here. But it still sells like freaking hot cakes, and I just don't know why, okay? But I am sure as hell going to find out and give my review. So, I'll try to make this one one of my priorities, okay? Because I think the Patreons deserve this, right?

47:19 Uh viewer request. Uh, this is a game that I have acquired because you guys would not stop giving me flak about this. Seriously. Yes. I don't know if I've played this before because this is a new art version, but I have finally bought a copy of Friaking Skull King. Okay. I I don't know if this is the one that I feel like I've played this before and disliked it, but seeing this new art version means I'm not entirely certain anymore. I It was so long ago that I can't remember. Maybe it was a bad day. Maybe it was a bad teach. I don't know. But when I did my top 10 trick takers list, you guys would not shut the hell up about the fact that, "Oh, your list isn't valid because you don't have like Skull King on it." And it's like, I don't remember liking it when I was first shown it. But when I look at these pictures, I'm not certain if it's the one I'm thinking of. There are so many like pirate themed card games or something that maybe some of them just blended together and gave me the wrong impression. I don't know. But I have bought this new version of it. So, Grandpa Beck's Games or whatever. I think I got it from Games Store. It was a bit cheaper. But, um, you know, I have bought this game. Okay. I am going to play it again. I will deduce for myself.

48:30 Oop, sorry. I'm going to the wrong tabs. I will deduce for myself if this is a good trick taking game. All right. Get off my back. All right. So, if I if I look at this game and tell you it's garbage, you better accept that fact. Okay. But at least I'll be able to conclusively say I have played it and I have given it the beans and found out if it deserves to be on my trick taker games list. But man, the amount of fans of this game that came at me for that, you know, but I've got I've grabbed it. Okay. Right. Happy. Um okay, let's uh go with um we'll do the big category later. Uh let's go. Finally got played category. Uh, so this is going for a game that has been out for a while and I just never played it because for reasons. In this case, it's because the game is a twoplayer game only. I don't get two-player games with a table very often, so doesn't really warrant it. But this one was two-player game only, and they had lots of tables at um I think it was Cold Spring games, the same place that I went to play um uh was it Cold Spring? No, it was not Cold Spring. No, Spiral Galaxy games. Yeah, Spiral Galaxy. Yeah. Sorry, did I say call spring for Cadia as well? I don't know. It was Spiral Galaxy that had it.

49:38 Yeah. Um and uh Spiral Galaxy had this one as well. And I'm pretty sure it was Spiral Galaxy, whatever. Um but the this is a two-player game that was very popular, but I just never got round to playing it. And it is an interesting little head-to-head game, card game called Compile. Yeah, finally I got to play Compile. And there's been several versions of it. And you know it I mean the box tells you nothing about it. So what the hell am I supposed to gather from this? But I finally played it. So there you go. There's me. Uh very very nice demo guy doing this cuz he had to teach about four or five people at once and he's coming back to play as play against me as well. So kudos to the guy actually. So well done. Um but yeah, this is a weird little card game. So you draft six decks and they're all six card decks and they come in all these different different names. Chaos Peace Time or whatever. So, this was the second set I think we were playing. And there's a first set that was already out and there was a third set that is coming in October, September this year. And maybe there'll be even a fourth. But the idea is is that they've got all these different decks, like 12 of them.

50:43 There's a good variety, a new draft, three of them. Okay. So, I chose Peace, Time, and Courage. Don't know why. I think I just wanted to choose anything that didn't involve a negative name of some description, like chaos and fear and war and stuff. So, I thought, let's go for something that doesn't sound aggressive. Okay, so I chose these three. And each one has their own little quirks. I'm a better at drawing cards, discarding cards, flipping cards, u mucking around with your opponent, mucking around with your lines. And the idea is is that you are placing the cards in the columns uh till you get 10 in value. And at that point, you compile, which means flipping the card in the middle, they're over. Once you do all three of yours, you win. Very straightforward uh goal, but obviously the cards are very shenanigans. They have a perpetual effect at the top, which may or may not be on the card. They have an instant effect in the middle. They might even have an end of turn effect at the bottom. But every time you cover up a card, you always cover up the middle and the bottom areas, leaving only the start ability, uh, like the perpetual ability covered.

51:38 So, you know, you obviously are covering up stuff as you go along. Uh, if you flip it over, it's only worth two value no matter what it was. And they range from values like 0 to six, you know, depending on what they do. And obviously, your opponent can mess around with your board. You can mess around with your opponent's board. You've just basically got to do various shenanigans to to basically flip your free before they flip their free. Now, I didn't know what I'd expect really because I'd never played it. But I got to say this was actually pretty solid. I enjoyed this a lot actually. This is a very cool little like cool two-player head-to-head game. You know, there's a lot of little tactics that you can do. You know, it's a very tactical card game and there's going to be some aspects of luck of the draw and stuff like that. But you can, you know, be crafty. You know, you got to think about, well, what's the best thing I do right now? Do I big up this lane? Do I try and stop them building up that one? Uh, do I just try and reset my hand? You know, like get rid of my hand and draw a new set, you know, because these cards aren't going to work for me.

52:35 And obviously, once you've got uh some of your stuff compiled, you know, when I've only got to compile time at the end of the day, I need time cards. The other two don't bolster my ability to compile, but you might still play them for their abilities. So, there's some cool stuff here, and the decks do have little subtle differences. Yes, there are some aspects of repetition, but there are some differences. Um, I think I won it in the end. I won it free, too. So, yeah, I got my third one. He couldn't stop me. Uh, his corruption was a pain. That was always uh messing around with me when I was trying to get my third one done, but I was able to do courage and peace relatively quickly, especially courage. That one like shifted pretty much instantly. But yeah, I enjoyed this one. And this was pretty neat. You know, it's I don't like having a paper sheet and paper rules and stuff like that, but you can get a playmat, so that improves things. There's not that many rules in the game. We didn't play with the control aspect first game, so didn't bother with that. It's a neat little concept. So, you know, it just means that if you've got if you've got like if you're dominating at a particular point, you can get some extra buffs. Um, but yeah, I enjoyed this. It's got good variety. I mean, I don't know if there's a situation where you might end up with three decks that just cannot work together or free decks that are just stupidly overpowered, you know, a bit like uh something like um ow what was that what was that game that you uh Fantasy Flight uh Keycraft keystone key something uh it was like where you combined like random decks together and you might have just created a super combination or something. I can't remember what it was called but um key something. Uh, but the the idea is was that I think that one sometimes you had some scenarios where it was just

54:06 stupidly overpowered. Well, this one I wonder if that's the case. Biggest problem though is that this is two-player only, which is why it's not a game I bought. But there's hope on the horizon. The third set, which they had there and on demo, has a solo mode. And I read the rules to the bot. It's a bot. You can play with the 12 decks that are in compile free. The bot will use three of those decks. um three or four of those decks. So they're I think at the moment they're restricted to those 12, not like the other ones, but you from what I could see from the pictures in the book could use any of the compile decks that you've already had. So yes, the bot can only use up to a max of the within a variety of 12, but you could potentially have 36 to pick from. Okay? And you go up against the bot, it's powerful, and you've got to basically flip yours before they flip theirs or compile something twice over. So there's another lose condition. If they if that bot mode works, I could see myself buying everything to do with compile as soon as that gets released. And that is September, October this year. But a solo mode is exactly what this needed. Now maybe in the future they'll do a multiplayer version like Star Realms did. I don't desperately need that. But man, yeah, if they if that solo mode is good and that turns out to be a good mode, I mean, I'm pretty sure I would see people like Mark Dainty and a few other people doing some reviews for stuff like that. Um, but if it turns out to be a good solo mode, then yeah, I'll buy all the stuff to compile and I will play this because I really did enjoy this. It's just two-player only games

55:36 are a problem. But if you want a game that's called tactical cards and you are in a situation where you can play this two-player, then by all means consider this one. Okay. Uh better than I recall category. Uh so this is the game that I have now played again since I played it in its prototype and I had reservations about it in its prototype stage. I still have a couple of reservations about it now, but it is still better than I recall it was. And that is the other big game that was certainly getting a lot of attention at the convention, which is World Order. World Order. Yes, I got a demo with Paul Grogan and a few others to go through two rounds of this game and, you know, with extra rules and basically find out what has changed. Not a great deal change since the prototype, but there were some tweaks, a little bit of streamlining here and there. Bit of graphical design changes which were appropriate, but also one or two aspects that allowed you to get past the luck of the draw. So yeah, there is a luck of the draw aspect in some respects. It is a mild deck builder. But you do have a card that you can cash in to do any one of the actions in the game as a one-off.

56:46 You get some pittance amount of points if you keep it handy, but you'll never use it for that. The idea is is that if you just happen to have a hand of cards that just does not have something like say build and move tanks and you really badly need to build and move tanks on a turn, you can cash that card in, sacrifice a point or two whoopy do and do that specific action. That is very handy. So that was very much uh appreciated. But the best way to describe world order is it's basically Twilight Struggle on steroids. Um this is not likey. All right, is a very different beast. Yes, you've got four factions and they can interplay a little bit and they're asymmetric, but at the end of the day, this is not a geminy. All right, this is Twilight Struggle on steroids. Uh, so you've got cards that can play as allies. You've got cubes on tracks and you get cubes in an area. Most cubes gets the most points. It's area control. And yes, area control is one of my least favorite mechanics. You know, area control, I think, is pretty much done and dusted. There's very little you can do with area control and I'm not that enthusiastic about putting cubes on a track as my main game arc, but the the actions you could do, the cards you could use and you know the fact that you could do a bit more trading sometimes off other players and that was better. I go that was a weird one like one off my leg. I must have taken a bad photo there. Um, but you know the actions you can do, your production, getting some allies, the banter, these two initiative, these two uh special project cards that you have different ones from other players and you can basically activate them at some point during the game. You know, there's a lot of good fun here and certainly there was a lot of banter between people about, you know, various political stuff

58:18 that's going on at the moment. You know, just having a laugh and the expansions sound like they do a good job with that as well. One in particular, the event deck sounds really cool because it's got events that are actually things that have happened in the last like sort of couple of decades and they had them on show and there's even events for Brexit and COVID in there. I mean, wow. Is that's keeping things current. But I find it amusing that you might have a world order game that slightly gets shafted by Brexit. You know, that's just quite funny as much as Brexit has already ruined this country. But, you know, you know, you take it with a light heart in this game, then it could be pretty uh sweet. But I did enjoy my game of this. So it is better than I think. And I do think world order has a decent amount of cool mechanics. But it's not as inter there's not as much interplay between players as there is in Hijgemony. I mean yes you are fighting for area control. But a gemony every little thing you do is going to affect at least two other players pretty much.

59:10 I mean you build a you build a company as the capitalist. Suddenly the middle class and the working class are like oh can I go work for you? What you know what does that do? Does that allow you to now get more influence cubes? Damn. that means you're going to be a problem in the uh voting area. Think about that. And there's just a lot of stuff that is interwoven. I mean, oh, oh, the working class has made um wages higher. Okay, so I'm going to get paid more. So, I probably want to get into the state companies over there. That means I need to pay you a bit more though. And there's a lot of direct influencing. World order does not have that. World order, the direct influence is more that you're threatening me with tanks or oh, you put a cube on the space now. I have to get more cubes in order to be first or second place. That's it. You don't do anything to my allies. You don't really trade with other players. You basically just flip a card that they have, which means that they always have this resource to hand and if they're not there and you buy the resource, then it comes off their supply, but you can only buy one, that's it. It's not like you can buy their entire stash. And so, there's just not a lot of the interaction between players is limited.

1:00:12 Even though there is some, it's not as strong as in Hijgemony. And the problem is is we played this for two hours and we didn't get to round three and that was with Paul Grogan doing a scripted demo with us. So that wasn't even factoring in trying to learn the game from scratch or anything. That was Paul Grogan guiding us through this game while teaching us, right? And that is two hours to do two turns, two two rounds, sorry. There are six rounds. I think this game's Achilles heel is going to be its length and other some people have mentioned the length and if you look at a review that isn't giving this like 10 out of 10 n out of 10s one of the biggest problems they mentioned is the length. I I do not get how Dice Tower gave this 9 out of 10 given that games that take six plus hours should be their like major bug bear but apparently they didn't seem to care too much about the length. Um, but the the fact is the fact of the matter is this is that it's going to be the make or break thing for this game because mechanically there's a lot of cool stuff in here. I like the cards. I like the growth cards. I like the stuff you can do with all the variety of actions. I like the asymmetry. Although you're not that different from other people. I mean, you have a slightly different um scoring condition in one way or another. But at the end of the day, you can pretty much apart from some mild differences in your starting cards, you you know, the EU is not that much could be the same as Russia. Russia could be the same as US, etc. So, there's not a lot of asymmetry there. I would have liked there to have been a bit more, but the length is the Achilles heel. This game's going to take

1:01:44 you 5 to 6 hours to play. It really is. I mean, I don't believe a fourplayer game of this can finish in less than four hours. I I honestly don't think it can unless everybody knows the game inside out and doesn't AP once in the slightest. But the problem is is that some turns take longer than others. The trade turn takes three times longer to well 10 times longer to finish than any other turn in the game. If I invest in a country, all I do is flip it over, put a token on it, and pay some money. There you go. And a cube goes on the board. There you go. Done. The trade action needs you to do two or three imports and exports using like players or countries and stuff like that. You got to juggle your money around it. It's 10 times longer to do a trade action. And then the research phase comes up when you got to buy these cards down here, right? If you've got people who aren't very good at reading cards and there's a lot of text on these cards, as you can see, and if it's upside down for you, that means you're going to have to lean over and peer and look at every single one and read it and absorb it into your mind, right? Four players are doing this six times in the game.

1:02:48 This research phase takes up probably a good hour, hour and a half in the game. I would imagine at least an hour in the game is probably taken up just by the phase of buying new cards because the sheer amount of AP and reading that has to be done is insane with this bit. And that is my that is my biggest worry with this game. I mean, I openly still going to do a review on it. You know, I need to give it more plays. I need to, you know, I need to play full games of this, you know, before I can really solidify thoughts. And that means I need to get a review copy, which I haven't yet. I need to request it. Uh, but this is one that I need to really give the beans and sort of see is that length justified. In a geminy, it is. In something like Colution, it's not. But if this game is going to be longer to play than a game of a gemony, does it really warrant that? Cuz I just don't see that there's enough stuff going on. I find my I found myself in this demo occasionally like you know doing the whole finger thing of waiting impatiently for like a couple of the others to hurry up and take their turns. It's like for Jesus Christ will you hurry up you know because I know what I'm doing on my turn. It's going to be a quicky action and I'm waiting for you to hurry up and figure out who you're trading with. It's I think that's going to be this game's Achilles heel and yet there's a bunch of people out there who are not going to give a crap give a crap about that. I mean there are people who still play Twilight Imperium. There are people who play Talisman. you know, that pile of trash, you know, that game that's like seven, eight hours long for a luckfest.

1:04:15 I mean, great. You know, there are people just do play that and enjoy it. Some people just have far too much time on their hands and don't have a problem about something taking longer than it should. But, you know, it's going to be the make or break. If you don't want a game that's going to take five to six hours to play nearly every time you play it with the recommended count of four players, you don't want to go near this game. Now, I don't know what it's like solo. Solo could be the saving grace if the solo mode in this is really good. I could see myself just playing it as a solo game and never playing it multiplayer, but we'll have to see. I need to get a review copy. I need to find out. Anyway, uh where are we at? Just over an hour. Well, this was always going to be a long episode, I think. Uh but we're nearly done. Um a couple of play No, we're not going to do that. Uh we're do we're going to do the um good potential. So, there's five games.

1:05:05 games. I want to quickly go over each to say that these are upcoming games that have the potential to be pretty good, but it's early days yet. So, with that, we're going to resort back to Board Game Geek. Um, actually, no, I probably can uh resort to here. So, we're going to go with first uh CGE. CGE have a couple of games that have pretty good potential here. That is drillers first. Uh, so drillers intrigue me. You've got this mech and you can take it down multiple levels in this mine. You can excavate the crystals and minerals. And then you've got to manage your fuel as a resource. You bring your mech back up, sell it for money, which allows you to refuel, but also buy better cards. You have this little standandy here, which means you can always see the top card of your deck. That's pretty cool. Whenever you get a new card or new tool, it goes on top of your deck. So, you got a little bit of visibility of what's in your deck. But the cards allow you to do different things. you spend them for resources and it encourages you to replace your old cards cuz they're worth negative BP. Um, so it's basically a little resource management game and, you know, little little mini deck builder with, you know, sending your mech up and down this uh tunnel here. The deeper you go, the more rewards you could get, that sort of thing. And everybody's chiming in. So, it looks like it could be a good midweight game. I don't think this is this doesn't look anywhere near the weight level of Arnac or, you know, stuff like or Seti. No, but I don't think this is light. I'd say this is going to be a midweight Euro. Looks good. Nice artwork. Uh good player boards. You know, this is releasing I

1:06:35 think around the Gen Con time, August, August time. And uh yeah, this could be quite cool. Um it sounds good on paper. Uh CGA have just been a bit of a blast lately. They've done some pretty solid games for me. So, you know, we've already got Seti and Arnac as like two sort of heavier games. I've got some other stuff they have for light. I would like to see a nice midweight game because I think that is a category they're slightly lacking on at the moment. You know, they had the Cook the Horror, they had the space uh one, whatever it was, the one that felt like very Star Treky that you wandered around in space and did missions. That was a bit of a dud. Uh yeah, I think they need something in a midweight category now because you've already got a couple of heavy games, you've already got a couple of light games, you need a midweight category game to really shine.

1:07:20 Hopefully, Drillers will be it. It does sound pretty good on paper, so hopefully when it comes out, I'll look forward to reviewing that one. Uh, the other one they've also got is Code Names: Critical Role Adventures. Now, normally I would have probably like rolled my eyes at the idea of, you know, a dungeon crawl version of Code Names. It's like, what? How on earth is this supposed to work? But a lovely young girl um, you know, explained it to me. And as she was talking, I was like, okay, okay, this could work. This could work. A little light bulb sha. I I know nothing about Critical Role. This is apparently a I don't know what is it, a web comic or some side D&D thing. I have no idea. I I don't do RPGs anymore and every RPG fantasy pretty much blends together for me. So, you know, I'll just accept it's generic dungeon crawl. Okay. Um although they do have expansion packs for this which literally use words straight out of Critical Role. So, if you are massive fans of it, then you can make the words do that. I do not recommend doing that.

1:08:16 If you're like me, you have no idea what they're talking about because they will just be impossible to link together. But the idea is is that you basically do a little mini RPG. So you have a character, it levels up with experience, gets new abilities and stuff like that. Um, you have a code names grid, you have a DM, so you still got the person on your team helping you do the words, but the different things that you've got on the grid, you know, there's scenarios where you've got to do certain achievements. You might have to do certain things in order or find find out where the assassin is, that kind of thing. And you know, the yellows, you could be little objectives. The reds are like timers. So, you know, these will over time cover up certain words or certain things will pop up. Uh, you've got blues for potential, I can't remember what the blues were, but they like like really cool places to go. The black assassin that, but basically, yeah, you are doing an RPG, but the code names mechanic is how it works. And so, there's going to be different team decisions as to which sort of things you should go for. And obviously the DM has to help link you to certain words in order for you to do that. You've got health, you've got monsters to fight and stuff like and it's like, okay, I mean it sounds cool actually and I would look forward to getting a copy of this and reviewing it because code names has got a little bit stale at the moment. You know, I mean it's a evergreen and it's a good game. Okay, although it's just AP just kills it for me really. Um, but you got code names pictures, you got code names and code names duel and the Harry Potter one as well. So, we need something new with code names rather than just changing the theme and jewel was a nice way of changing it up a bit as was pictures I guess. But code names critical row adventures could be a cool

1:09:48 way to utilize that system in something a little bit more interesting. And yeah, it sounds like a gimmick and I still have no idea about critical role and I'm not going to go out and suddenly read it all or whatever. I'm just going to accept that this is code names RPG, you know, and just call it that. But yeah, I mean, this concept could work. A co-op adventure with a code name system. I could see people wanting to play this. I know a group of people that would probably like to play this. You know, they don't normally play a ton of dungeon crawls, but they like code names. We could blend the two, you know. So, I'm very curious to see how this one will turn out, but this has good potential. Like maybe a good potential to be uh code names for gamers rather than like for casual families. But I mean, families could play just fine, but there's definitely a bit more meat going on here. All right. Uh, next one on the list, uh, we're going to, yes, you already saw a slight preview of it a minute ago. That is Cult of the Lamb. I got a fair few photos for this because my friends were adamant that I had to play test this game and get a lot of photos because uh, we play a bunch of um, indie games and there's been a good rush of good indie games lately. You know, we got like Valheim, we got Deep Rockic. Uh I'm turning a bit. We got Frost Punk. Uh we got Don't Starve coming. You know, that was really cool from its preview and that. So, and so Cult of the Lamb is another indie game.

1:11:11 Uh you build up a little cult of sheep and do stuff with followers. Um yeah, suffice to say, this is one I have not played. So, out of all these little indie games that are quite popular, this is the one that I never really felt like playing. My mates, however, the same ones who we play Valheim and stuff like that with and who helped me out with Don't Starve and you know that sort of thing, have played Cult of Lamp and they love it. So, this is the game that they are interested in. I have no idea what any of this stuff is. I mean, I don't know what these characters are meant to be. I don't know why poop is a thing that you're supposed to clear up in this game. I don't know what these tarot card things are. I don't know what these symbols are meant to represent. I literally have no idea really about this game. So, I got to come in completely blind. And they were very keen to have somebody with a blind knowledge of Cult of the Lamb in here. I would certainly say that this game is fun, but I think it really is going to be for Cult of the Lamb fans. I'm not sure somebody who has no idea what Cult of the Lamb is is going to get as much out of this game as somebody who does know what it is and recognizes all these icons and all these symbols and all these characters and stuff. Okay. But I have said that I will try to play Cult of the Lamb at some point. The problem is that Cult of the Lamb involves you building up like a base of stuff and doing things like that. It does have some fighting and stuff in it which kind of intrigues me.

1:12:29 But the problem is when we play things like Valheim and stuff like that and Don't Starve. I don't do base building. Okay. If I do any base building, it's to troll the people who are actually base building. I don't like base building, okay? I find it boring. I'm the one who goes out and explores the land, finds a new area, uh goes and kills stuff, you know. I am in Valheim. I am the combat master, okay? I am the one who is good at combat, doesn't die all the time, saves everybody in rage, you know, keeps people alive and goes out and forages stuff in dangerous territory. Like at the moment in our playthrough, we've just entered the plains areas. And so obviously, you know, person in our base farmer wants all the flax and stuff and and stuff to make linen. and you know they want to get desksto you know uh pointers for arrows and black metal and stuff like that. So who's the first person they call to wander into the planes which is pretty dangerous territory me. That's what I'm good at.

1:13:24 But this game requires you to be a bit more into the base building side which is why I haven't really gone near it. So it's and indie games I must admit I'm a little bit I mean they either are belters for me or I'm just bored out of my head. I mean, their other game, Terraria, that's getting absolutely roasted at the moment. And I've tried Terraria, the video game, and it bored the crap out of me, so I could not care less. But then I also didn't expect to like Stardw Valley, and I really like that one when I tried it. Even though it's not the most amazing thing for me ever, I still sunk a decent amount of time into it. One playthrough is enough, I think. I don't really want to play it multiple times. Uh, but yeah, there are these other indie games out. Aie, the Willow of the Wisp, best platformer I've ever played. Hollow Knight didn't really interest me as much. I don't like being dumped into an area with no context of what I'm supposed to do or explanation, but I am tempted to go back to Hollow Knight because it does look good. It is a very nice looking game and it is a platformer. I do like platformers, but maybe I should just go in with different expectations. Plus, the sequel came out which apparently was pretty good as well. So, tempted. Anyway, I'm getting off track here. Coat the Lamb. Um, Cat the Lamb. It's so you got two aspects of this game. You got a little dungeon crawl bit which you can see in the top right corner of this photo. I should have taken a closer one of it. Um, as you're going through this little mini dungeon crawl thing where you've got branching paths, uh, potentially, so you could be in different rooms and basically these enemies can turn up and you roll dice and allocate hits and try to kill them off and obviously there's retaliation effects and stuff like that.

1:14:48 It's a very barebone system, okay? But it allows you to get rewards. It allows you to pick up like curses and, you know, which apparently is a good thing in this game. It said a curse. Do you want to go in a room that gets you a curse? And it's like, well, why would I want a curse? It's like, "Oh, curses are spells that you inflict on others." Oh, right. Okay, that makes more sense. But the I did not know why that was a good thing at first, but I went to grab two tarot cards, which is why I've got these two in my hand, you know, and you know, stuff like that. You go through this little mini adventure, and then once you're done with the adventure, whether you die or retreat or leave or whatever, or get to the very end, you might even have to fight one of the weird mini bosses, the bishops they're called, or something like that. Um, which do look cool from a miniature perspective. You then go back to the camp and you basically recruit followers and do stuff on the map. So they've got these little like things that you stick into a Yeah, you've got like a model piece where you can stick in the head of a follower and you can even bless them. So they've got this like little halo thing sticking out the back. I got to admit that is adorable. I love that. You got the prophet miniature there which looks a little naff if it's not painted I think.

1:15:51 But I love this idea that you've got this robe like little beep. Like it's not even a wooden meatball. It was like this plastic thing. But I love the idea that you're going to have this like robe stand that you can put a halo and this cutesy little head in it like you know to look like with these googlyeyed animals and stuff, frogs and rabbits and bunnies or whatever, you know, like foxes and stuff. I admit the aesthetic of cult the lab does appeal to me. All right, so I will play this game at some point. I promise you. Okay, I mean if you are Cult of the Lamb fans, sell me on the game. Sell me on the game. All right, you know, you know, get in the comments. I want I want to know. But yeah, you can build up followers, so you manage resources. You got food, bones, and wood, and devotion. You got your health. You got equipment you can build for the adventure. You got buildings that you can build. There's quite a lot of them. You can have a bunch of followers. You can sacrifice them. You need faith as a resource to keep them in check. And this board here, you know, you can send your prophet to do stuff like preach a sermon, recruit followers.

1:16:46 You've got constructing buildings. You've got the um uh different try and show. Yeah. What? I really didn't take the best pictures here. I'm do apologize, but uh where's a good idea? So, yeah, you've got poop as a resource. So, you got this follower generates poop. You have to sort of deal with it. They've got their own traits. But if I go back to the board as best as I can. So, I mean, you know, you can collect food in one of these locations. You can collect devotion. You can clean poop. The idea that this game is going to have poop as a resource is just amusing. Um, but the How does that work in the video game? That's going to be weird. But the you know so it's kind of like a worker placement or an action selection here. You have got limited spaces and your profit will get more resources and stuff like that. So this has potential okay there is the potential for this game to be pretty good. I mean computer licensed games have been pretty solid but I've not played cult the lamb so I don't know if I'm going to get into this one as much but maybe by the time this gets released because this is early days. I mean they've got a lot of development to do on this. You're not going to be expecting this to release until at least late 2027, I bet. So, this is definitely a early prototype thing, but maybe when I've played the game a bit and this is developed a bit more and a bit streamlined a bit more and stuff, it could be another one of these video game licenses to work. Problem is, they also made Terraria and that really isn't doing very well at the moment. So, we'll have to see, but it's different publishers. I mean, bear in mind Glass Cannon Unplugged doing Don't Starve, which I already said was really good from the prototype. They also did Frost Punk. You know, they seem to know what they're doing with this. Move Publishing

1:18:18 did Valheim, which was decent. Not the most amazing game ever, but it was still decent. But they also did Deep Rock Galactic, which is one of my favorite games. So, there are publishers, different publishers are doing different video game licenses. Some are better at it than others. This company needs to prove that despite Terraria's um issues, this one is going to be like really cool. But I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops. And you know what? I'm excited to get into a different video game as well for it. So, it has potential and I reckon for fans of Colt the Lamb, it's going to be pretty sweet. I just maybe need to turn into one of those fans. Okay. And let's see. We've done Drillers, we've done Code Names, we've done Cult the Lamb. Two more uh very quickly because I am seriously running out of time here. This one is Oakspire. So, Oakspire is a little game from Lucky Duck. I grabbed their little tiny uh game Kitsu, which I'll try to review. But Oakspire is something that's coming on uh Kickstarter. It's either on Kickstarter now or it's coming on Kickstarter there. But uh looks very good and it looks to be a very simple uh resource management uh style game. So you got these free things here. You bring in resources and then you've got to, you know, bring them into your buildings and you got to process them and then like move them to the construction site. You build buildings and these will give you other effects and stuff like that. So it sounds very straightforward, but there are a couple of other little cool twists. You've got, you know, when these buildings fall off this display, there's like a community effect that happens where everybody gets to do something. Cool. I like the idea that there's a little bit of a all round

1:19:49 um interaction in that sense. Uh it sounds very straightforward in terms of its rules. I didn't get a full explanation of it. It was kind of like me overhearing on this one. But, you know, it looked quite simple. It's got very nice artwork. It's going to look pretty cuz it's Lucky Duck Games. But 20 minutes a player, nice short play time for a simple game with a decent amount of variety and all these different buildings that could come out and, you know, simple resource management. It looks interesting. Um, I don't know a great deal about it, I must admit, beyond that, but this could be I mean, the builders of the Sun Leaf Group, whatever. I hate it when these games have like taglines and stuff that really mean nothing from a theme. It's got cutesy animals. Everything's about cutesy animals, but you know, the description probably gives a better one. So, here you go. Uh yeah, a cozy tableau building game where you select project cards that present different stages of wood crafting. They can be used in a multiple of ways. Turn them into restored wood, play them as company actions to move, process, or upgrade your resources, or blueprint them to start working on a new building. So, this is multi-use cards.

1:20:51 I love multi-use cards. You know me, I love multi-use cards in games. So, a nice simple Tableau resource management builder with multi-use cards. This could be a pretty sweet game for me. Um, but that's about as much as I know. I think it's a a future Kickstarter. So, as obviously everything's just a preview at the moment and Rado, you doing it thing of like, oh, look, it's going to be amazing even though it hasn't been released yet. Um, you know, and stuff like this. So, yeah, I mean, we'll find out whether it's any good when it's actually properly made and released, but this could be pretty good. I like the sound of this one. And then finally, uh, we have something cool. We have a pretty big one here. And this one I think I need to pretty much do um uh this one.

1:21:37 This is called uh sorry on BG. This is called Song of the Wild King. Now, all I did was take a photo of the box here. And you can see that there are three artists involved with this. Two of them are more to do with the cards. The primary artist, though, as far as I can tell, or certainly from a lot of the box art and stuff, is Andrew Bosley. I really like Andrew Bosley's art. I know not everybody's a fan of his art, but I actually really like it. I just find it really colorful and vibrant. So, so I get like quite a kick out of it. But this is basically meant to be a not gateway level, but a lightweight almost sort of I mean originally he tried to use it as Everddale meets Gloom Haven. And certainly you can see the size of the box. You know, it's definitely got that Gloom Haven size crate, but this is basically a co-op campaign game. So yes, I know we've seen these stunt to death and I know that I don't go mad for campaign games, but then Lands of Every Shape was a fun one.

1:22:30 Um, but you know, so obviously it's not typically my wheelhouse, but this one's a little bit more interesting because I mean it's theme, I mean, yes, it's animals and stuff like that, but making it a cutesy animal theme and making the rules simpler yet giving you a lot of variety means that this could attack a good little niche in the market. because most of these campaigns are massive overall and mainly for gamers. And we eventually got off the whole Gloom Haven thing. And the main description we sort of came up with was that this was basically Everell mixed with Oath Swarm. And some of the development on this is being helped by people who have worked on Oath Sworn and some of these other games. You know, they want to make it a bit less like Gloom Haven and more like something like Oath Sworn, but obviously streamline certain aspects to make it a simpler game that families could play.

1:23:20 So gamers could get a kick out of it like on challenge mode, you know, up the difficulty or whatever, but you could also play as a nice just fun story game with parents and their kids and it's like that's good. We don't really have a lot of those. They typically are all for dieh hard gamers. So, okay. Yeah, that would be quite sweet. But here's some other little quirks with this. Now, I don't know how much information is going to be on the main page. Yeah, cooperative adventure. One to four players. So, you could do that. Um, safeguard your community from the mysterious forces. is turning peaceful wood beasts into frenzy threats. So, this is going to be your, you know, typical plot, but it's got writers that were involved with stuff, like I said, Oath Sworn and other very famous campaign games. Oath Swarm is a game that I gave an 8 out of 10 to. It's not perfect. There are some bits that are problematic with it, and it's probably a bit overroaught for its own good, but it was pretty well written, and it was a pretty decent game overall. I mean, Osorn's got a lot of good stuff in it, and Osor is effectively like an exploration phase with a boss battler.

1:24:22 That's what this is going for. So, you have an exploration phase, and then you have the boss battler at the end. But here's a couple of little twists that I quite like. Firstly, the exploration phase is not just a choose your own adventure story. You actually do have a little map with cards, a bit like what Aidier We Dare Tread did. I've not played that one. I mean, at some point maybe I'll play a Ridgier, but somebody's going to have to give me 200 pound and buy a copy of the game first. Um, but the or they're going to have to give me a review copy. If the publisher wants to give me a review copy of Radio Darede, I will play it and I will review it. All right. So, you know, maybe drop them a line. But the the idea is is that the map is played out and you do actually fight some little mini fights and make some little decisions. So, yeah, there is a story aspect as well, but it's not just read from a book. All right. you actually do physically put your minis on a map and do stuff. So that's a little bit different, but here's the best bit here. So it mentions it briefly here. So within a chapter, you break through the walls, play through scenarios, objectives, challenges. There'll be upgradeable cards and stuff like that. Each scenario about 1 hour to play or you can finish a chapter in a single afternoon. Okay, so keeping the time length down for them.

1:25:31 Nice, nice, nice. But here's the other bit. Chapters culminate in climactic boss battles. Defeating these powerful ad adversaries opens new paths forward, unlocks potent abilities, blah blah blah, and may even bring strange unlockable characters to your cause. Now, what that specifically means is that basically they had a thing where they said, you know, they it would be cool if we could play as the boss. That's what this game is allowing you to do. When you defeat a boss, the boss is effectively unlocked as a character that you could then take control of and play as if it was a normal player character. That is cool. I don't think any other game does this. And if they do, they don't do it like much. You might get like one character who does this. But the idea is that all the idea that all the things that you are fighting as the bosses could potentially then be like, "Well, you know what? This guy retires.

1:26:22 I now want to play as this massive like wizard necromancer dude that we just fought, you know, and see what that happens. I mean, this beasty thing on there that one of these wood beasts, I saw that as a miniature. This could be one of the bosses. And if that's one of the bosses, the idea of playing as one of those that you could like ride on top of a bit like an ant or that would be pretty awesome, you know? So, I could that's a cool concept, not one that is seen often. And again, I like games when they try something new. Bring bring a little unique selling point. Be different. And you know, I'm I'm not like getting stupidly excited over this. You know, it is a big campaign game and you know, it is definitely early days. I mean, you know, they hope that at some point 2027, I suspect 2027. Is that when it's going to be? Uh, let me find the page. Yeah, we're looking at a 2027 release at this point. So, it's still going to be a while, but and it's got a lot of development yet to do, but I mean, it could look gorgeous. It could have a nice interesting story that I would be happy to play through. Um, it would be something I could play with friends of mine who don't want to have like a massive gloom haven type thing, but they want to get back into a campaign game. We could play something like this. You know, they've got Everddale. Um, you make something of Everddale and various other cutesy stuff like this. So, this could be really good. But, I could also suggest it to them to play with their kids. By the time this comes out, their girls will be a couple of years older and they could play it with their daughters and I reckon it would be really good. you know, almost a bit like taking something like Mice and Mystics and making it into a really big box campaign game, you know, made me a little bit more cutesy

1:27:53 because didn't mice and Mystics go quite dark? I can't remember. Um, but yeah, I never actually played it, but sounded like a cool concept. But yeah, this has good potential. So, this is why it's in this category potential. So, I'm going to keep an eye on this. We'll see what it's like when it's closer to being fully developed. You know, maybe we'll maybe I'll look at a prototype at some point, but I do prefer to look at something that's mostly finished. You know, I do chop and change these things, but yeah, when it gets closer to fulfillment, I'd be interested to take a look at this one and see what's what, you know, but I'd keep an eye on this one. This could be a very interesting game. All right. if they get it right and they've got the names on here, they got the good artists, they've got the developers of games that have done this sort of thing before and done it well and improve on some of that aspects, we could have a very interesting uh entry into the market here. And that's uh do do I do any more? All right, I'll do a couple more just for you guys. Couple of games that I played in the open gaming that are new to me. I did play the gang with uh three other people. We knew what we were doing. We aced it. Yeah.

1:28:54 Fantastic. love the gang. Uh, also played Ghostlift. Uh, Ghostlift is fine. It's a card shedding game. It's okay. I don't love it to bits, but I think it's fine. I do like the fact that it's um don't be the loser and there's no actual winner in a game that I think is quite cool. But unfortunately, when the publisher was there selling cheap copies, I didn't have 20 quid in cash. I couldn't get my own copy. But I'm I'm I'm happy to play Ghost Lift. I just don't desperately I feel like I need to own it. But let me go over if I can get my bloody bearings right. Okay. Um, two games that I did play. So, we're going to go with the good and we're going to go with the bad. So, let's go with the good. In this case, the very bloody good. I think it's called Shuden Frrazer or sorry, no, shouldn't. I mean, I'm I'm going to try my best to even remotely remember what how to spell it. Uh, I have no idea. Um, it's this little game on the Ah, you won't be able to see it in that one. Somebody did give me the name of it though, so I will have to basically consider I don't know. I'll talk about it while I'm looking for it on the Slack channel. But the idea is is that this is a trick taking game. So already I like trick takers. That's a like a major thing. But this one is one where you're winning tricks, but the idea is is that there's a sort of a a trigger end an endgame trigger, which is that you're playing to 40 points, but if you go over, you lose. And then whoever was next in line with the most points is the

1:30:24 winner. And the idea is is when you win the tricks, you add up the values of all these cards. So some of them are positive numbers and some of the negative numbers, and that's the points you're going to score. But if you ever win pairs of numbers, they cancel each other out. A bit like how some of the numbers uh would offset each other with um uh what do you call it? Um uh no thanks. That's what I'm trying to think of. And I found this to be like really interesting. Like this was a cool twist on the trick taker. Again, something new with trick taking and I really enjoyed this one. I mean, we had a tense finish there. You can see there, that's a score track, right? That's all of us in the that's most of us in our 30s and eventually there was a winner, but I did really enjoy it. I thought that was just a quite a really cool trick taker. Now, I don't know if I can find the um actual thing. I thought I had it. I thought I'd put it on their Slack channel. Maybe I put it on my uh business suite Facebook.

1:31:22 Let's have a look. Um content. Uh that's cult the lamb. Oh, here we go. Uh Shuden Fraser. Did somebody comment? I swear somebody said it. BG should add fraud. Uh let's see if I can spell it. Okay, so let's see if somebody's done it. Uh s c h a d e shiden freo or something. Yeah. I think the only time you can buy this is if you go on to certain websites with um imports and pay it like 30 pound to buy this was a bit much to buy for a small box but this is it. So it came out in 2020. Um uh yeah duplicated valued cards would allow you to score but second highest will win the trick. And you know, you've got this like push of luck thing with the 40 points. But I just really enjoyed this. I thought this was a great little trick taker. I'd never heard of it before. It's got a German name with Japanese writing on the back.

1:32:18 It was kind of weird. But yeah, why does it came with a German name have Japanese writing on the back? It's kind of weird. But, you know, I just found this to be a cool trick taker. It's not flawless. It's not like the most amazing game ever, but I did really enjoy this. I thought this was just a cool concept. So, if it becomes easier to get a copy of in the future, I'll think about grabbing it at that point. But now, let's go on to a game that wasn't so good. Uh, we played it literally straight after. Rumble Nation. This is a game from, I think, Hobby Japan, if I'm not mistaken. Came out in 2017. Um, and it's basically an area control game. Again, area control. It's boring. Whatever. Um, but yeah, Hobby Japan and a few others did. So, the cover is not bad. you know, interesting little uh looking cover there. But the idea is is that this is basically a very bare bones area control game. So, you know, here's a picture of it there, but I've got a better picture of it here. The idea is is that you basically have these meuples to put out, and if you control an area with the most meeples, you take the talent, it's worth that many points.

1:33:21 Second place gets half. Okay? Most points wins. And the idea is is that they resolve in the order of their number. So, 2 3 4 5 6 all the way up to 12. Now, what happens is you roll dice, three dice. Two dice you combine to choose the area you're going to put meeples into. The other one by this little chart dictates whether you put one, two, or three in that spot. So, this game is quite luck based because you might roll three sixes, which allows you to put three people into 12, which given how hard it is to roll 12 would mean that you have pretty good easy dominance of that space if you did it. And somebody in this game did it. So, here you go. There's 10 and 11 here. They rolled 10 and 11 with, you know, a five and a six spare to put three people in there off the get-go. And we just couldn't roll 10 11. So, we just didn't bother to, we didn't have the means to sort of take them out. But that alone is pretty bare bones. The idea is though is that when these things resolve, whoever wins the area puts two white meles into a neighboring adjacent area to support their troops in that area. So the order that they um go off is important because whoever wins free could support 7, five or 12 here. If I won, you know, this guy for some reason decided to go mad on five. I'm not sure why. You know, that just made all my efforts in five a waste of time as yellow. But you know, if I'd won five, I could have supported people in seven. Six, you know, I won that one, so I was able to support people in seven. So it's that that kind of thing.

1:34:46 It's a little cascade effect. The problem is it's very difficult to predict how that's going to turn out until like the very end of the game. And at that point, you really don't have many means to like fight back against a lot of people. It's like you can go, "Oh, I could do this. I could put this here. I could use this tactic card to, you know, these tactic cards to maybe shift a person here and there, but if I do it, it doesn't really change the outcome. Whatever. You could also have asymmetric abilities. We didn't use those, so we just had the tactic cards. I found the tactic cards to be boring. The ones we used, they didn't really do a lot, and they didn't feel like worth doing. I think there are some more interesting tactic cards in the game. We just used very basic ones. It's nice that you got the variety where these tiles are going to end up. It's going to very much change the flow of the game and stuff and it is very simple rules and it's not that long a game so I can't get too upset with it. But this just felt too random. I mean I just felt like the dice kind of dictated where I could go. You know, I really want to put stuff in this area. Oh, I didn't roll the dice for it. Woe is me. I guess I'll put them in this area that is useless. And oh, look, I'll I can put them in this area, but I can only put one mele in it.

1:35:51 Whoopee. I've got three meuples there. You have five. That's not really going to change anything. Um, so whatever. And then the stuff resolves at the end. And it's like, oh, okay. I mean, you know, that didn't cascade that. There was no point supporting that area cuz I was already winning that anyway. And yeah, I couldn't really predict that was going to happen. All the cascading stuff. Oh well. Well, well, it's done. And whatever. And and I just felt underwhelmed by this. It just I didn't feel like it's not really a strategic game. It's just basically the dice are going to dictate what you can do. And I didn't find the tactic cards to be that interesting either. It's it's an area control game. I just don't get that. I just don't get that entertained by area control games. I'm sorry. They're just not my thing. Um but I just found that, you know, certain things just seemed a bit too powerful. uh like being lucky to roll three troops and put them into spaces with hard to roll numbers like the 10 and 11 over there and the 12 just feel too powerful. I mean if you know unless you can find a way to get them out of the 10 and 11 and there's only so many ways you can do it and you can basically just get a ton of points from there. Winning some of these early ones just isn't worth it. They just don't get you enough points. It's only for the cascade effect that they're worth winning and you know it may not even cascade into anything that's worth it.

1:37:10 It I don't know. I just feel like winning some of these things outright is a better way of doing it. But I don't know. It's got some it's got some decent aspects. It's quick. It's easy and that and I can see why some people like it. But it's area control. It's bare bones area control. It's dependent on dice. But it is a short game. I can't get too mad about it. I just found it a bit boring and found it underwhelming when everything resolved, you know. I thought, okay, this is going to build up to something cool and when it all kicked off, didn't really feel that interesting. So, yeah. Nah, Rebel Nation done for me. Uh, anybody I recognize? Uh, say I mean, Hobby Japan, I don't go mad for their stuff. Designer, what has the designer done? Nothing I recognize. So, this is a one-off game. Whatever. I mean, it came out in 2017. It's Hobby Japan. Most people don't know this game exists, but yeah, it's an area control dice game. Meh. It's just me. All right.

1:38:05 Okay, that's it. We're hour and 40 minutes in this bumper episode talking about stuff I did at the games expo. But yeah, if I saw you and you said hi, thanks for saying hi. If I didn't get to see you, sorry. Hopefully next time. Um, and obviously hope you enjoyed my looks of the games. I've put my haul uh the games I bought on Instagram and my Facebook page, so check out that if you want to see what I've actually got. and I'll see if I can get uh I think the review copies that I supposed to hopefully get after the fair um I don't have many review copies. I think the review copies I got if I check my Instagram photo again uhoop bear with me was come on work with me here. God weird picture of my friend at uh at the expo. Okay. Uh right. Come on. Where is it?

1:38:50 Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Why is it so hard on Instagram just to find like your latest post? I don't get it. It's It's really weird. Instagram is just such a really hard thing to f to navigate. It's not a very good interface, I must say. Uh Samson Gallery. Let's just do it the easy way. So, there we go. So, in terms of my review copies, I have got Yonder. Uh I have well, 10B was not a review copy, but I do intend to review that one. Um I have a Jackpot to review, and I have something called the Great Commission strategic card game I might do a review on. Um, and obviously I've got now got the Earth Animal Kingdom expansion. So, uh, that wasn't a review copy. I just went and got it, but I will do a quickie beyond the base game video for that. Uh, Kitsu from Lucky Duck Games. And by the same token, I need to talk about the Lord of the Rings LCG upgrades, which is a pretty good thing because that means I actually have an excuse to get Lord of the Rings LCG off my shelf after so many years. I'm looking forward to that. Uh, but yeah, not a lot of review copies um, acquired. So, the rest of the stuff I've got on my haul will just be stuff I'll talk about. I might do reviews for I mean, after all, I need content, but maybe I'll do podcast stuff, you know, where I'll talk about them on the podcast. So, it gives me some fuel for that. Uh, but I hope after the fact to get a copy of World Order to do a review on, and also I spoke to the guy at Chip Fury Games, uh, might be able to take a look at their 20 strong lineup. You know, those little solo games they got explained to me, and I thought the concept seemed pretty cool. No, I'm not getting a review copy of Betrayal of the

1:40:22 Second Era. Um, you know, Elder Scrolls, but to be honest, I don't think I'd be able to get that one finished, even if I did, but I'm not against it. They want to give me a review copy of Betrayal of the Second Era. I will get it played and I will get it reviewed. But for now, baby steps, you know, the 20 strong stuff sounds pretty cool. So, yeah, that's it for me. I'll see you on the next Broken Mele episode. I hope you enjoyed the expo if you went, and if you didn't, don't worry. There's plenty of other times to play games, and the expo is not for everybody. So, and it's not the most perfect convention in the world. I know I've certainly um not been the most kindest to it. I do think it needs to shape up in a few areas. I think it is getting priced out of the market in terms of being worth it. I mean, I pay a lot of money to go to Essen, but man, the stuff you do at Essen, being in Germany, you know, having, you know, German steak and sausage, you know, seeing all like loads of different fans from around the world, all the hotness, new releases, the eight miles like worth of, you know, eight halls. So, eight miles, eight halls, like multi miles of all these games and stuff. Essen has a lot more to justify it, especially as it's like pretty much an entire week of time for me to go there for the cost. The expo is getting to the point where it's pricing itself out of being worth going. I mean, I'm having to take out a day, you know, and only go for two days because of its cost issues. So, you know, we'll have to see how things develop. But hopefully everybody enjoyed themselves. Uh, I'm recording this while it's still on. Um, so, you know, if you're there at the expo right now, then hope you're having

1:41:52 a good time. But if not, safe travel. Well, even if you are, safe travels home. Hope you had a good time. Otherwise, I just hope you enjoyed listening to this uh big bumper review of things I got up to at the expo. So, take care. Remember, it's only a game. And I'll see you on the next Broken Melee episode. Bye for now, everyone.