Ask Us Anything! (2024 Edition)

0:04 hey I'm Ryan this is my brother Daniel this is rolls in the family and today we are just answering questions questions from you the viewers you know unlike most videos where uh the the quality and entertainment factor of the video could you could place the blame on us for prepping and preparing this is on you if this isn't a compelling video If this video is trash we only have our audience to blame that's right um so yeah we have we have a list of what it's like 21 aggregated Questions here from kind of the the Google form we pushed out and got some responses that we'll just be walking through and uh answering some questions and we don't really have any other call outs here there's not really going to be any links in the description there's not really a you know equivalent question to ask you so yeah we want no engagement do not engage on this video please do not do not click that like button don't do it you won't this is reverse psychology I think is more powerful we'll say this G be like our most liked video all a sudden it's like man that works that works we're GNA do that every time now um okay let's let's just hop right into it Daniel I'll be kind of uh driving here as far as uh the questions but we'll we'll just kind of it's maybe an understandment to say we're winging this a little bit but uh you know hopefully we know what we're talk normally do you know okay pretty normal rules in the Family Video question number one who started playing board games first and how did it spread through the family and this is I think kind of an interesting one because we had played

1:36 board games earlier as kids like kind of classic board games and even like there were a few that popped into our collection like I remember our our older brother got carcassona a gift we had that like I I guess I don't know more but grab us at the time like I remember it was like that game in our closet we're like oh yeah that's that kind of like weird game that's like kind of fun like know I don't think we ever like really realized how much we could like that game if we really understood and played it more but it was really it was really killer bunnies dang out that that changed everything for us um I distinctly remember uh going up a sentence going up into the mountains to these outlet malls with our family and dang I are sitting in the car bored out of our minds we were um and our mom is like oh you know you guys want to like buy anything I was like and then I I don't know who had the idea but I was like hey back in in Denver we could go to the mall and there's a game store there maybe we just check out and like find a game uh to get well we did that and the game ended up being uh killer bunnies which uh it's this very aggressively uh interactive game about killing each other's bunnies and trying to it actually had it was great at that time I mean we played it a ton we played and it was our whole family we had friends that got it I mean it be it was the thing that we were playing all the time yeah and so that I think for us that was the oh like there's different

3:06 games out here like this is just different than I wonder what else is out there yeah um and I ended up you know searching online and I think that was when I found good old Tom vassel I think was like one of the first video I found his reviews for dominion and this is in 2008 or 2009 yeah um and dominion and small world which were both new games at that point and those that was the first purchase we made uh I got dominion and small world and that just I mean that changed everything we played small world we played with our Sibling Group and stuff that was like almost every time we got together Dominion we were hammering out games we played a lot of dominion which was a great first game kind of to get man that was that was awesome and so at that point I think Daniel and I were hooked the most out of everybody and I we it just allt going kept going from there the rest is history here we are on R from the Family Y uh question number two is what is your fondest board game memory this what comes to mind Daniel so I I have kind of two things that come to mind I guess um for me amazing board game memories are I so much for me is the shared experience of like the group and and sometimes it's even beyond what the actual game is doing but just what it kind of the experience it creates so two things that come to mind one the first time we did a key Forge tournament uh that was so cool we've

4:39 I've been in now I also I think I won that tournament actually so maybe that was why I liked it so much but um yeah where we all mean we get together in the morning and we're we've got the table lined up with you know four games going on head-to-head we got pool play lining up for them the seating in the tournament that was just um just an absolute absolute blast kind of all day event the second one is also an all day event uh but it is just one game one play um Twilight Imperium I think about the uh games specifically the fourth edition that I had uh this uh about a year two years ago um man it just all day epic people are just engaged the entire way um so I maybe I have a biased the longer the better is kind of my uh my bias for for board game memories but that man it was hard to pick the fondest Ryan that's such a such an exclusive nostalgic yeah yeah I kind of struggled to think on this one um like I I think uh kind of the season of when I was starting college and I met this kind of core group of college friends that I was able to kind of introduce to games and that just became I mean I still to this day play games a lot with some some of these friends um but that was maybe not one specific game it was it was Arkham Horror later eldrich horror um it was Cosmic Encounter it was tiu that was

6:12 just you know we had played so many of these games but it was mostly Among Us siblings like there there's definitely a season there as I was starting College where the main gaming group was me you and our younger sister um played a lot of games the three of us and so just having some other friends that were really into games didn't have to play with Daniel anymore you know there were games that we we had never really seen their true potential Cosmic being the best example that we played a lot of three-player games in of cosmic which in hindsight like I like would not really want to play three player thought it was good yeah it was like this game is fine but man it was like another level getting it with with the right group um I also just have memories of those really early days when we were first getting in and like we found an online retailer um that was actually local to us and you could do online pickup or or local pickup so I have these memories of us you know placing a new order and our collection at this point is just a few games and like you know one of those early orders had like race for the Galaxy and lost cities and pandemic like the original edition of pandemic and I remember us driving up and going to pick up the games at this and it just when I think of fond memories that kind of stuff comes to mind and bringing it back and then we're at a season of life then where we could just like play them non-stop so oh my gosh our stats are insane yeah the stats during that period Legendary Legendary so that's those are that's the beginnings beginnings of our journey but

7:43 question number three how have your gaming tastes changed since you entered the hobby yeah well I think the the biggest thing that's well there's a couple things have changed for me one uh it's just harder to get games to the table right now in this season of life with young children then like Ryan was saying those are stats back in the day when when you both are just living at home and you know you got nothing better to do suddenly young kids full-time job it's a double whammy does make it more challenging I was thinking about in terms of you know my taste or or whatnot you know I I have a bias towards Big epic I love campaigns and I still do like that's that's still the same but especially as it's become more challenging to play you know games like that my appreciation for really great Gateway and short games has gone up a ton because it's like you know you can have all these long Campaign games but it all that matters is what's getting to the table and the reality is you know 80% of the time it's you've got a situation where it's maybe people who haven't played a ton of games or you got a short amount of time cuz there's kids are napping or something like that and you need something to deliver a great experience and so I've noticed recently in my collection I actually think my last um uh birthday gift that you all siblings got me was just like geared towards those kind of small you know uh and I was so happy because it's like man these are the things that are getting played a ton right now so you didn't want a copy

9:13 of O sworn to just sit on your shelf for a couple years it's you know it's really fun to stare at all these games that you never never get to play so that's probably uh the way it's yeah I think it's pretty similar for me I think the less interested in big Campaign games like we're huge fans of replayability game like we are looking for games that we want to play over and over and over again but the ones that say oh to play it over and over again you really want to have the same group yeah and like like that just starts to get hard um right now um I think in some ways I don't know if some of my tastes have changed as much as just like I've understood them better over time and like the kind of games that I gravitate towards um but I totally agree with you that I just have much more of appreciation for like across all the demographics in our collection where I think early on it was just like what is the game we most want to play over everything else just like which was always like the heavier game whereas now I'm very excited to find a game that like o this is interesting I like it but it also fits this situation really well totally um yep so we'll see now now we're documented on the internet people will know exactly how our gaming tastes change from what 2023 onwards the pressure TBD TBD question four who are the people in your main gaming group family friends or strangers at a game store well here it rolls in the family uh I mean it is true that family

10:45 has been a huge one over the years as far as number of log plays and I guess now that I'm playing with my my son and stuff there's a lot of a lot of plays being logged now within to the Next Generation Um but yeah family is a big one and then I would say friends I mean you definitely had your high school friend group and then college friend group that a lot of these games played and like I mentioned with kind of the group I met at College we our Circle tends to be pretty small though as far as like right people that we pull into game nights and stuff on a regular basis yeah we haven't gotten a ton into like I mean I've we've maybe a couple times been to you know more kind of not you know public you know gaming places convention stuff um I think for us you know gaming I don't know I won't speak for you but for me it's it's like I I have these relationships that I you know care a lot about and gaming is a really awesome way to like engage with those relationships I'm not necessarily looking to like just play a game like like for me it's the two coming together you know what I mean so so like absolutely I would be cool playing a game with people you know that at a you know convention or something like that but I think it it it it loses a little bit of it for me when it's versus people I know and we talked about the limited time in this season of life like we don't we don't get that many game nights so if we're going to have one usually

12:15 it's like I'm going to I'm going to host it I'm going to try to get games I'm looking to get a table and I'm going to try to pull in people that's like I really need to get together with so and so again and play games again um so yeah it it really just depends but that's I I do always have to remind myself like not to just get stuck on the same group like because sometimes there's people that like oh yeah there's that person I haven't really play games with but I think they would like games and like man are games a great way to like start getting to know somebody better foster relationships more so um but yeah mostly family and friends at this point yeah uh let's see question five how often do you play games and is it with the same people or new groups little similar here yeah I so we kind of already mentioned on the the you know I don't know for me it's it's mainly the same people but like we were mentioning you know when I when I have we love having you know couples over people over and a game is often times a thing that we try to kind of introduce you also moved States I did move States yeah so I've been meeting lots of new people you set yourself up to potentially game with a lot of new people it's true in terms of like how often um again it is it is my stats are down from from previous years like it really it's it's hard it um I mean if you took out kids games for me it's probably the least plays yeah like I've ever been logging since we started like I you know

13:50 I'm probably getting three maybe four gaming sessions in terms of like per month roughly don't tell them you're only playing three games a month it's going to ruin the Allure of our top three no and usually and usually a session has several games and what um but it's it's it's hard right mean we're not I'm I'm not playing board games every single day um because uh and I are in it we're we're in it for the long haul you know there's there's there's a day when kids get older where things might change you know if we're living with other people that like playing games uh it it could change I seriously think Ryan we we're going to be able to break our stats of the old days of us living together you know like it'll be like an objective it's like this month we're going for the record we're playing a gria four times in in one day in one day yes um so yes it's it isn't a a ton you know as you might be led to believe by two guys that are talking about board games on a YouTube channel but uh hey it's realistic it's where our our lives are at right now yeah yeah uh let's see any tips for starting and maintaining a gaming group it's a good question well first have family members that like uh you know I think for us like it it happen somewhat organically that we created a lot of like key friendships

15:20 with people that liked games and now we just know like and it it fluctuates over time there's ones that aren't in town anymore or you know when they come it's like okay we could get this group together um so I don't know that we've ever had this feeling of like man I need to like from scratched created you know seek out new players or something it's happened a little bit more organically through friendships we' been making I know you kind of have a new obviously you moved and met a lot of new people and had to kind of start on this and I know you also um have been doing some stuff like through your church with the like organizing like more of a event yeah that that's been something we've kind of been exploring and you know it's yeah I think you know for us gaming gaming flows out of the existing relationships and so like starting at a place of like you know who are the people that you're closest with and then uh you know then taking kind of like a look at like okay what you know do have they played anything before um you know what's kind of maybe you know what are those good intro games it is it is interesting and I'm honestly still in the kind of figuring this out state AG of a more like organized you know people maybe you don't know coming uh coming to it um yeah that's something that we're we're trying to kind of get get going here and I think obviously there's a lot of you know groups that do this already kind of you know in in the community and whatnot yeah and I would definitely say like you know while that's great when it works

16:50 out the way it has for us we like existing relationships and Friends turn into you know really strong gaming partners um if you know I would say if somebody's in a situation where they're like man I just don't have those people in my life or like there's you'll have relationships and your wife that you're not going to turn them into heavy board gamers like it's not it's not like them um there is something to be said for like a common interest can be such a powerful foundation for friendships totally and like putting your like if I didn't have those people in my life I would probably try to put myself in situations whether that's going to like local meetups or something to try to find these you know cuz if you find somebody that's really interested in the same thing you know you get talking about board games back and forth like that could be the beginning of a new friendship and while like I think our preference for game nights tends to be like host an inhome game night with a select group of friends that could be a way you find some of those people um and so there might be some if I was in that situation that's how I'd be thinking is like you know man I got to find some people that like these types of games as much as I do yep um do you ever Daniel get bored of a certain mechanism and avoid it in future purchases yes um you know yes next question um you know this was It was kind of hard to think of like oh this mechanism I really you know avoid I think and we've probably mentioned this

18:22 on the channel before we've really cooled on Legacy games um to the point of like I remember initially it was like oh my gosh like this is incredible to now it's like borderline a negative you know just cuz again we care so much about like replayability um that the idea of opening secret boxes isn't something that the Novelties a little we've done them I think we also like it's hard we want our favorite games that we love to continue to be games we can be playing so it's always HS like yeah I could really love this Legacy experience but then it's going to be done and like yeah uh it is like a harder cell yeah it like for me a legacy the experience a legacy game has to deliver needs to be like it's it has a way higher bar yeah because it's going to end at some point so like it needs and and for me like I loved Gloom Haven and that was worth it for me one just cuz you have like 90 plus you know I got my I got my plays out of that but and and I love the experience but but yeah it is challenging like if a game doesn't deliver this exceptional experience it's like Well we'd rather just get a game that we can enjoy and play forever so yeah which in defense of Gloom Haven it's the Legacy stuff's pretty light like you could replay Gloom Haven like it's more of a campaign thing but yeah I I would agree with that yeah I I don't

19:54 know that there's a certain mechanism that comes to mind there's definitely ones we enjoy um more than others but I find that like games it's so like a sum of the parts and like a game is often more than the sum of the parts so even if there's a mechanism not as big like it all depends on how it comes together like what's the experience I'm getting out of the game we we probably we neither of us really like take that mechanisms you know things that are really like I'm going to go out out of my way to do something mean like we neither of us really like the kind of mean El yeah we tend to not be as big on it though there's definitely some like I would say high conflict games we like but like you know take like some of these more casual card games that are literally just about like playing killer bunnies actually isn't far from these types of card but like yeah where it doesn't feel like you have as much agency or like well I couldn't there's no way I could have seen that coming and you just like took away like sometimes it just doesn't feel as good um so I would I would agree with that memory I'm not a big actually I mean there's some truth to when a bigger game has something that clearly is like this rewards somebody with memory it's like very exposed it's not my favorite and I think I think the reason it's not my favorite is because I like know I could work really hard mentally but you don't to do a better job of it but I do not find it fun to work hard mentally to

21:25 just do memory like that's you know and then we have other players in our group dang on those who I'm referring to who has an excellent excellent memory so if we're going into a game like that it's like well sh we know he's got a clear Advantage yeah um yeah so there we go maybe not not big on memory games very go um what are the elements this is kind of similar the elements in a game that typically shift it from one you would that you like to one you'd rather not play like kind of pushes it over I had a I had a few things uh here I mean again we're just sounding the RH and Daniel thing thing that we always say uh if a game doesn't have good replayability you know this was this was the um kind of our experience I think with like a project Elite of like really cool game but just when we realized I wouldn't want to play it 20 times not yeah a game we're we're always looking through the lens of what's this going to be like 20 times from now um uh so I think there's that if a game is too long long for what it delivers you know like sometimes we've had games that are fun but it's like oh my gosh this this needed to be like an hour shorter than it was um I think that is is a challenging one um and then I mean if a game's just not getting chosen uh you know sometimes the proof is the pudding over time we have games we have games that we love and it's but then it's like man this is just not getting to the table for whatever reason either it doesn't interest other people or

22:56 something about it's hard to get to the table maybe it's uh harder to teach but um I think I don't know those were kind of a few of the things that came to my mind for them yeah and I think we've definitely noticed over time like as our collection grows the bar is just continually raised for what a game needs to bring to like Earnest spot in the collection yeah so like especially if we're getting like a new game that's one of these bigger games we talked about how we don't have that much time to get all these types of games to the table man that game is competing against a all of these of our favorites of all time that are sitting on our Shelf and me playing this game means I'm not playing one of those and so sometimes like when I get a game to a table I can go I like this experience but I would always rather play one of those other ones on my shelf yeah um and you know some people maybe value more the the breadth of just getting to try tons of different experiences I think we we are a little bit more we like the breadth so that we can find the ones and then we really like playing them over and over and over again um so sometimes I just have that gut feeling that like yep it's not it's not quite where it needs to be um or it's too similar to another game totally uh what is on your shelf of shame or shelf of opportunity if you're more optimistically minded that you really really want to play next I don't

24:27 think we're not huge shelf of Shame people and that we don't typically have that many games that we haven't played like we I think we slow down our purchasing to kind of match what we're feeling we can get to the table and usually if we get a game we try to get it played um pretty quickly I quick did a mental exercise of like what on my shelf haven't I gotten played yeah a lot of times it's actually expansions like oh yeah I got that new expansion for the game but I haven't gotten the chance to try it yet so I recently this one is very understandable I haven't done it yet I recently got arcs which I've played in person now once I do have the blighted reach expansion the big kind of mini campaign thing it's probably going to be a while before I get that one tried um but it is when I would like to but there's um in fact I don't think there's a single base game on my shelf right now that I haven't played like I think all my games are currently played the other expansion ones like the paperback Adventures there one of the characters I haven't used yet uh that's like a whole separate box I got the uh expansion for canvas canvas Reflections haven't had the chance to try that it should be an easy one to try at some point it's pretty accessible game and then I I did recently get the uh expansion 40 days in daylor to too many bones haven't tried that either it's a little harder to get to the table but honestly when I was looking at this question I I was doing a little pat on the back I was like job ran I don't have any any games that I have to have to say I haven't played I don't know if same

25:58 for you dang well it so I'm actually thinking about it now I I think I have played um well except for Captain sonar actually no that's not true I technically have played it but not the not the real time version of that very hard game to get to the table but there are uh several games that I really you know am just like I need to get to this to the table again um and they're all games that I've the thing I'm still trying to kind of just figure out is that group to play uh kind of longer epic games with I I'm in a Star Wars uh Imperial assault campaign right now actually finishing it to uh tomorrow um but uh but games like cthulu death may die I got to get that to the table again I I haven't even played it since we got I think since my birthday last year when you got me the the you know extra uh boss monster for it you know eldrich just got Mage Knight uh I mean if if I could get a ti4 game in again that would be awesome um so those are the ones that are like man that would be that would be really awesome gu our Shelf of Shame tends to be less of a unplayed games and more of man we haven't gotten those to the table haven't got to the table in a while yeah but I think I have played pretty much everything on on my shelf so boom look at us Ryan look at us our this is this is a little bit of pivot here change of pace but dang our Deluxe components in games worth a

27:30 higher price point so this is this is actually a really interesting question because I think we have changed I think our opinion on this slightly Ryan and I used to always be like you know value and so it was like deluxe components just why would I get that when the game play so reigned Supreme that it was like what is the cheapest I can get the game play and I think part of this was when we were in this phase of growing our collections right collection is small we're wanting to acquire more and more games I think value was like a really big thing cuz you don't have unlimited income whereas now we're at the point where it's like man we're not adding tons of games time is much more the constraint right now time is much more of the constraint and we've had some experiences where the deluxe components do enhance the game play uh a lot I'm trying to think Ryan like what would what are some that we have that I mean the the qua chip qua of quber chips is the biggest example of like this is an upgrade that was so worth it for us for how much we enjoy that game and what it adds yeah it's when it's when an upgrade isn't just a like we're we're less of like oh it just visually improves it but that it there's some form of like functionally makes this just I think that tends to be true um so yeah those chips in the bag I mean that is just a infinitely better experience than pulling the the and you can totally play

29:01 it normally like I'm sure there people are and love the game and that's great we just love we just you know that was that was one that was like that is that is worth it so it's challenging you know figuring out when is the upgrade cuz they're so tempting you know they always try to get you on those kickstarters to go well that's what I was that's part of why I one of the one of the many reasons that I'm not as big on crowdfunding stuff anymore is I know it puts me in a psychological situation where it's going to tempt me to just add on things that I wouldn't buy by bu individually yeah individually if I already had the game and a lot of times it is these Deluxe components um I am a huge non fan of the fact that a lot of these Deluxe things just end up making the Box bigger like I've got limited shelf space it makes it harder to bring places so that's like a bigger box is almost always a negative for me yeah but like another one I mean you've got foundations of Rome which you know obviously they just came out with foundations of metropolis is that what it's called um and you I think you know foundations of metropolis is like in terms of playing the game great you can get that enjoy the game but for you that was the part of the cell was a game that for a kind of medium you know light to medium weight game can deliver that just beautiful big tra table presence now I was fortunate I didn't have to make the decision when found found of metropolis is available they were smart the order they did this um but yeah so I think

30:33 we've shifted on I've also I hate when a big box Edition actually just makes the game harder to play like harder to get everything out and harder to yes and so when I hear like big box Deluxe my first instinct is like negative like overall of my interest level in it but there are exceptions to that and then there's certain upgrades that's like oh yeah this really actually elevates it I just I ideally prefer to not be front-loading all those decisions in like a crowdfunding campaign I'd rather play the game and this is how we did it with qua play the game oh we love this game then realize let's go make this upgrade later um it's kind of the more ideal sequence there uh let's talk about digital gaming what is your preference experience level with digital board game platforms such as tabletop simulator and board game arena it's a good time for this this question considering just this last year we've kind of gotten into board game arena we had played tabletop simulator that was kind of the one during especially kind of during covid that was a really I mean that was the way we were we were playing together um yeah I'll be intered to hear your thoughts Ryan I think they are both really great but very different experiences um you know board game arena just in terms of the like the the up you know it's just the upkeep is obviously it's doing it for you um it's very simple you're just CLI easy to see everything easy to see everything very

32:05 functional um you can even do turn you know um you know turn based which is I haven't done that a ton but you know that's cool um so board game arena on that side is is awesome but I will say like if I'm wanting to experience playing a board game in the way that is most similar to me sitting down some friends that's tabletop simulator and I and that's it's been an interesting thing cuz we've played some board game arena together and it's been fun but I will say there's always been that little part of me it's like this just feels this doesn't feel like I'm sitting at a table it feels like you're playing a digital game you know and we're usually on a video call or something but it's a very yeah very different feel so so I enjoy both I have a preference towards uh tabletop simulator um just given the it most feels like I'm sitting down at a table but board game arena is awesome and it it allows you to play games fast and uh and and often so so that's kind of where I'm at yeah and I I agree I I like both of them I might skew a little closer to board game arena just for my current situation and how I don't do a ton of digital gaming but it's nice to be able to just jump on there and just do something quick um yeah I mean that's just the fact that board game arena has the whole I mean I guess tabletop technically has like Lobby join game stuff but I've never like touched that

33:35 and I I wonder about the quality in that type of setting versus board game arena where it's abstracted more to where as long as the person isn't like quitting on you or taking too long with their turns it usually works pretty well right um board game arena you know great great selection of games that art do have implementation to them so it does a lot of the scoring stuff as far as just digital games and we do face this battle for us of we know if we try a new game digitally that we're having a much less ideal exper first impression of that game yeah and so we're very hesitant to do that because it's like I don't want to like get a first impression of a game that is maybe going to keep me from like trying it in person or getting it when if I had gotten it in person and tried it in its most ideal form of in person with my group of friends in person we might have loved it you know and and that line can be very uh close between a game you just like and and one you of so I think that's been part of our challenge of like oh there's all these games we've been interested in trying that are on board game arena but it's like is that is that one what I want I know do I want my first impression to be in that setting I don't know and like there's there's the cost of like well there's to buy a game you're committing to paying for it and getting it kind of not knowing necessarily if you're going to like it but the upside is I get to

35:08 really give it that best chance and like having already bought it you already have that like cognitive bias of like you own it now I already put money into this like so you're a little bit more invested to like it um and so It's Tricky so we we definitely use digital board gaming as a tool um you know when we obviously we don't live in the same state anymore so it's a nice way to be able to play some games together it's a good way to play games you already know you like for sure um but I think we do we haven't figured out exactly like what we want to do with that uh yeah like how often do we want to try new games and which ones on these platforms okay we're getting into a section here of some maybe more like game specific or recommendation type stuff I was asking what are some games games that are fun with kids age 5 to9 but also with adults and there's probably a lot that could be mentioned here I think name everyone hold on here uh for me there's two angles to this there's the find a really good kids game that's meant for that age group that also really appeals to adults or there's a lot of adult games that are light enough that a 5 to n year old could play it um so as far as the kids side of the spectrum I mean we just released on our website a whole guide of recommendations across kids um and so specifically getting up to like

36:39 the top tier of that um would be kind of ones that you know potentially adults are going to enjoy more um but I've definitely seen some games in my collection as my son is getting older now granted he's four but he's played you know an absurd amount of board games at this point um but I'm finding that there's there's games in my collection that I feel like oh we could try this with him um and so there's been ones that have worked well for us um let's see Marvel United is one that I think is a really great Cooperative it's got the superhero theme can be very fun to play cooperative helps yeah play with this age group um other ones we've played recently played Escape curse of the temple I recently pulled out Santorini with him which actually worked really well because I gave him he plays with a god power and I play without one and so that kind of and it kind of like evens the playing field and you know Santorini isn't like super rules complex and he likes how it looks and stuff that is really Seven Wonders Architects is a one that he's really liked we've had success with I pulled out dungeon fighter with him I think that actually I mean that would go over great with a group of five to nyear olds um running this Cooperative throwing dice yeah obviously like open information so that you can be whether it's Cooperative you can help help along the way I think about also you know like a Cascadia which you know the type of we we sometimes talk about games where it's very hard to do something wrong cheat you know to cheat like Cascadia it's l just take like take a tile and match it or you know just no

38:13 time that you have to say oh you can't take that tile because or you can't put that there because like everything so they might not they might not do well which is fine but but games that are that are like that other ones came to mind you know maybe like a king Domino uh that's another one susho party you know is again just you're just taking a card and playing it that they can take whatever they they want you know so um yeah I think those are those are some good ones nice yeah the next question is pretty pretty uh related which is uh which Gateway Games would you recommend for convincing non board gamer friends to join in um so I think it's inter like the the non board gamer friend seems to imply that you kind of know they haven't played anything um but it can kind of vary cuz like I'll have friends or like situations where I'm like I know nothing about this person like I absolutely have no idea you just you just saw them on the street and no like you know some family gathering somebody brought a friend totally and it's like okay I have no idea and so in those situations I'm much more likely to air to lighter games that I know the people that like games more are still going to like these games but I'm just not introducing risk of putting this person in a situation where they're like why am I playing this um so you know one of the classic ones we talk about here is just one like just one is there's it's so low risk to to play this game but it also can go over so well with um people that maybe are looking

39:43 for more out of games right um a lot of other times though I know a little bit about them like I might know o they like video I know they like these video games or or just I've talked to them and I just get the feel that like I think you would like games um and so then I think I'll I'll move up to maybe some of my more light to medium strategy Gateway Games we praise qua of quedlinburg a lot that one has gone over fantastic um and actually has Fels pretty safe in a lot of situations um that somebody's going to like that you mentioned cascad is a good one ticket to rides an absolute classic Seven Wonders Architects is one that recently has been a very safe like as far as like strategy it is about as accessible um as you can get um so definitely something that came to mind yeah I was thinking of even just a couple you know couple ones in my collection I know wingspan is one that if I if I know the person if I sense they would like something with a little board little more meat you know that's kind of a a more of a Gateway One to me um stone age is another one like that I think the one thing that we would recommend is in those situations like you as the board game owner player you choose the game like yeah people you know sometimes we've fallen into like oh well let me describe every game to you yeah here are the seven options I think would work best first of all they're not going to have any good ide you're not going to be able to explain the games well enough for them to have a really

41:14 good idea to know if they'll enjoy it because they really haven't played much you're the one who knows them and you're the one who knows your games which means you're the one in the best position to find it'll be a lot faster to just pull something that's something I've learned is just Daniel just just choose yeah I either pick it or I like narrow it down to two and give them a really gut way to decide it's like do you feel like gambling on a camel race or do you feel like uh you know picking out sushi or something and it's like I know either of these are going to go well so maybe I let you make kind of a thematic decision yeah that's good plus I just like seeing people's faces when I offer camel gambling as an as an opportunity for the enticing yeah um this one's pretty specific you know we I guess have established ourselves as local uh agrica expert experts but for a simpler two-player Agricola experience would you recommend Agricola All Creatures big and small or the family version of Agricola we actually when Agricola All Creatures big and small came out I think got it as a gift for our sister-in-law yeah that's right yeah I don't think they were married yet at that time remember yeah I haven't played it um but from what I understand of it I think it's a no luck experience um so you you would have to know that you're going in even though it might be more rules light it may be kind of like chess like right like where if

42:44 there's no luck you can really um and so I think I could see it not working well if one of the players is kind of just like more strategically minded they might win every time because it's a no and that might not be you know what you're looking for the family version of gria is good though I think we both would look at it as a stepping stone to The Full agrica Experience I would have a hard time recommending agrica like yeah just play the F that's your way of playing it forever MH um I think when I hear this there's just a lot of other games I'd go to recommend I think other than these two there even since back when I mean All Creatures big and small came out over a decade ago I think um there are so many good more accessible two-player games that have come out over the years you know I think of Seven Wonders duel Star Realms some of these abstract ones like Santorini although maybe that's getting more into kind of the the skill-based things um targi we played recently that was good um Watergate there's there's a lot of just like it's a thriving time for kind of small two player games um so personally I think a lot of the newer ones are probably going to be a better fitter stronger offering than than All Creatures big and small I'd agree with that and I would just say I've played a ton of agrica games at two players obviously they're they're talking about simpler but it is fantast

44:17 fantastic at two players if you want the full agle experience we're not going to tell you no right yeah so very nice uh red while on the Agricola train what are your thoughts on caverna H we have not played caverna but we have not played caverna because we know that we won't like it as much as agria as well as anyone can know something that you know they haven't experienced firsthand um caverna in a lot of ways feels like the Agricola experience for people who didn't love Agricola maybe liked it or didn't love it caverna could be the answer more sandboxy more forgiving um but for our taste we know we like tight games tight worker placement tight Resource Management so making it more sandboxy is almost certainly a negative for oure but my gosh Dango they took out the cards like caverna has some stuff with like I think buildings but it's mostly the same every game there's not a lot of variability it's more this big sandbox that you can every game kind of decide how you want to go in and do it and that is just pretty much a non-starter because my favorite thing about a g is getting a hand of these cards every game that's different and how can I apply these to this tight system that I'm familiar with

45:47 um so we know for our taste we would probably be like yeah this was fun but I would always play agria over this but I can see why there's people that that prefer cavna yeah I I have nothing to add there I I basically just listen to Ryan and with what games to buy and he I you better not play caverna or like I'm sure if we played it we'd probably like enjoy it you know because it shares so much DNA with a game we love so much like we're going to enjoy it but like the pieces you took out or some of the the cards are like literally our favorite part of the game so yes um what are the best Christian board games I was trying to think D I don't know that we've really played or own ones Ryan Redemption oh yes back in the way when we were weed little we should have talked about that in our board gaming Journey we did have some Redemption cards which is like a Christian off shoot of like magic the Gathering I don't know that we ever knew how to play that I I never knew how to actually play I think our older brother figured it out at some point but yeah it's I don't think it's something we really like seek out like when we're seeking out board games It's So based on gameplay and how much we think we're going to enjoy it and like you know the theme is kind of maybe an add-on on to that so I don't think we're like opposed to it it's certainly a smaller pool of games that are coming out that are in this demographic I feel like the ones

47:18 that are maybe going to appeal the most to me are ones where it's kind of more of a a setting backdrop to just a very strong game versus you know that's kind of preachy or like is just really trying to make a Christian game or whatever um I I think of the example of recently I'm not going to be able to pronounce this it's like Jus Jerusalem it's like Jerusalem with an i I guess uh ano Domin I'm probably watching that but uh recent one that uh came out I haven't played it but it's based around like the Last Supper um and there's like a mechanism with actually like trying to like get the closest to like the table it's kind of an interesting thing but it's got a lot of like historical stuff in it and from what I saw of it it looks like just a really solid interesting game that's set around kind of that that theme um yeah so like I could see being interested in trying that but the the thing is my decision to try that is almost entirely going to be driven by how interesting do I think the game is going to be right I uh I didn't know much about this game at all but I remember at at our uh College they had a board game section and uh the game Sola Fed was uh in there which um I remember is something about the reformation and stuff like that so less of like the Bible but could always pull out a here I stand which is like the big six-hour Reformation asymmetrical war game I don't know how yeah yeah but uh yeah we that is not

48:51 uh I I've you know I've I was actually at a retreat recently where there was a few party games that you took kind of I think there was one that was like kind of the I don't know if it was Apples to Apples type thing but I feel like that's right that's where you're going to see a lot of the like more more Christian ones are which for me like a lot of those games are games that benefit from the breadth of topics on the cards and so when you zoom it all into like one demographic it's like okay I think this game got worse but uh it depends I've also seen uh this game called Deliverance it's like a dungeon crawling like a angels demons theme thing that supposed to be pretty good it's not really the type of game regardless of the theme that I'm looking for these days but mhm you know maybe once to check out if you're interested there you go would you consider showing your gaming library and talking about your favorite games from each shelf what I would say is comment below if you think it would be interesting if we did like a vlog style you know just walkthrough of our Shelf um if that's a video people think you know it wouldn't be that hard probably for us to you can see part of my shelf you can see no one ever sees Ryan so blurry D you should get a better camera I know so much boka yeah um so yeah that might be something we consider this is a tough question maybe the toughest question on the list what is your favorite individual card slow SL ability in a game and why was there anything that came immediately to your

50:22 mind for this thing yes uh I don't think this is actually like if I legitimately went through everything this would be my answer but Ryan I had to say the wet nurse from agrica I wondered if you might wondered if you might it's so it's so powerful yeah I forget exactly the ability well I wrote it down whenever you build rooms you may grow your family by up to the number of rooms that you build this cost one food per person so in for those who don't know in agrica family members is everything I mean I mean if you can get another family member that's you're you're just you're getting more actions than everyone else and so to be able to uh not be blocked you get to do it as part of the action that's the prerequisite for doing that thing yeah it's uh it's now it can be hard like you got to be feeding these people you know like it can sometimes be challenging to pull off but I've seen some pretty uh powerful agrica games run through the wet run through Thea I don't know if that's what I wanted to say but yes uh yeah that's T yeah it's it's a fun card it's one of those ones that like I don't know if overpowered cards are like my favorite this is the first thing that came to yeah I think the first thing that actually cuz I kind of thought of gria I was like there's probably cards in there that would maybe fit but it's hard to remember um the game that came to mind more for me actually was Lorenzo magnifico specifically the houses of Renaissance that have those house powers that are

51:52 just some of the most potent player powers in any game um one of them that maybe came to mind is one that I just remember having a really good time with um in that game you have the whole thing that you can get the the territory cards which are the green cards and then you go to the space that let you run all those territory cards executing each of them that's like equal or less than the die that you used mhm well this particular house every time you buy a green card you get to immediately auto run your whole green row at a at one less than the die you used so every time you're getting the thing that's making that row better you're just immediately getting to run it without another action mhm and it's so powerful and it's just like so satisfying because it's one of the most satisfying things in that game to get to run your thing and you get to do it so many more times with that um so that was one that came to mind I was looking through some of the other Lorena once and there are just some good examples that there's the one that you literally get another worker the entire game like everybody's got the three and your one and you just have like another one it's like man that's like so overpowered um but if everybody's overpowered maybe nobody is Cosmic Encounter probably also has I was trying I just couldn't think of a specific I'm like there's so many crazy things in Cosmic so yeah it'll come to us we're we're coming down the home stretch here dang what is your favorite game night snack oh Ryan there is an objective best board game snack because it it can't be it can't be messy so get

53:22 those Cheetos out of here um yeah it it just needs to be like you know something that you can just be eating as you're going and and is good and the definitive best one that Daniel loves is animal crackers I want that was my guess oh it is it is like they are clean they taste memories of a uh a bringing like somebody bringing out a bowl of animal crackers to the gaming table and and minutes later them being devoured by I love animal crackers so there you go you don't even I used to get animal crackers a lot we haven't as much lately but I agree that it's a really good it is a really good gaming snack cuz it's they're they I don't know if you like them we we both like them there's nothing I hate more than people having to wipe their hands off after every you know whatever snack they're they're grabbing yeah don't you love when people bring their own snacks and set up camp just said get out of here uh yeah so the first thing that came to mind for me is Del Taco no so this horrible chice Del taco is our go for like we're doing more of a full game full gaming day we need to get a quick dinner in and like we can just quick get that and E some Del Taco so we had had to shout out Del Taco yeah well by the way this video is sponsored byac spons by Del Taco they don't know it but they don't know it but it is uh I think like pretzels and specifically we I like like the peanut butter pretzels that have like the peanut butter inside them those are nice one again they don't kind of come off on you and also got a shout

54:54 out to my uh you know Walmart Great Value brand drink mixes is the goto we have consumed yeah a ton of sponsored by Del TCO and Walmart we've got our gaming nights yes uh Daniel question 20 what what part of Colorado are you in wow what a you're way up North comment down below where you fit what state you think I live in I'll I'll hard it if you're right um I do not live in Colorado anymore um but Ryan's going to drop Ryan's going to drop his uh my exact my gsin check the description below if you want to see Ryan's address yes I I I'm still uh so we grew up for some context in Lakewood which is kind of Foothills to the mountains over there uh I'm now in like the Littleton Inglewood area which is like south of Denver mhm you know yeah it's nice like it love Colorado yep uh somewhat related we have our final question I see Broncos a lot they just mean in general like yeah like out in the wild out in the wild I'm assuming they must get out so I don't know why their followup is are there any sports sports games uh that you like sports themed games we are big Broncos fans Denver Broncos um good time you know God Bless bonck but uh sports games are hard man cuz we are big sports fans so we are definitely

56:25 the market for this type of game but Sports board games are really really hard to do well because you are translating a very Action Real Time type thing to a more turn based or tabletop thing so there haven't been a lot I think that have grabbed us honestly looking at my collection I don't really have like a true Sports I used to have I used to have a game this wasn't like our games got but I got a game when I was younger that was like a football s where you like roll the Dice and you like Mark what's H and I really enjoyed that well and if you watch that I know kind of maybe a more modern implementation that is first and goal um which is a dice based thing honest and I I've like considered it the thing that keeps it from me is like that the little bit of like if you're playing to strategically win in it it starts to really get away from like what you would actually realis do in football there were just some things with it that kind of made it hard um there's been other ones I've looked into um there's baseball highlites 2045 which is a very funny it's it's baseball but it's baseball in the future where half the people are robots and cyborgs and stuff yes but it's a it's a deck building game that has kind of you uses like the baseball kind of bases mechanism and stuff that I've actually heard very good things about yeah um but I've never pulled the trigger I like you've tried to design like a sports that's how I know it's really hard I was working on a football game for a while and it still percolates in my

57:57 I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas um well and it brings it in when I was working on it I kind of came to the conclusion that like besides the strategy element it would really help if it fed into some dexterity mechanism cuz dexterity mechanisms can so help capture the action and possibility space of a sport um and that's why honestly things in my collection that make me think of most like sport feeling I think of pitch car flick in the car cars around the track or kroen or clask which is like air hockey or even dungeon fighter I mean yeah dungeon fighter has a little bit more of that like yeah Cooperative in those types of moments um so yeah I definitely have my eye out another one I saw is a there's a hockey game called trickshot that actually looks pretty good like if you if you you like hockey that's the one I would look into um yeah but yeah may maybe I maybe this will inspire me to get back and working on that uh go Ryan is INS foame football game um but that wraps up our questions hope hopefully you learned something and hopefully it was somewhat interesting like I said your fault if it was not well thank you all to every single one of you that submitted a question and if you didn't why didn't you um but hey we might do one of these again next time so keep a look out for that uh we don't have any links below uh this was just a us to you little chat but we do have a couple more videos here if you want to listen to us for a little bit longer you can click one of those and we'll see you

59:27 in the next one