Geoff Speare - A Conversation w/Heavy Cardboard

0:28 e

0:58 e e now a

2:30 n he a a

4:54 he hey what's up y'all good morning welcome to heavy cardboard I'm your host Edward I'm Jeff spear all right so today well okay we've known each other for a number of years at this point yes we have and uh Jeff you may know as kind of our resident High frer geek and I mean that in with all affection uh and you've had a hand in the expansions and and modules and all of that we're going to get to all that but I figure context to start right so we're going to sit and basically talk for an hour hour and a half talking about your background and then how you got involved with the whole highr your world and and and all of that so um hi that's Jeff uh so we're we got our Patron drive going on I'll talk about that later today today is just going to be our conversation so feel free to ask questions we may or may not uh answer them but uh that said um Jeff like tell people some background about you to get started um I'm just this guy you know um

6:28 so um I've been doing gaming for more or less ever um I think you know junior high high school started with like the Steve Jackson stuff so Car Wars Illuminati um was introduced to Cosmic Encounter um which played a lot of that um so very you know variable player powers and and you know very creative game that's sort of my my bag um then I got lucky that some people I went to college with ended up um getting connected to um Alan noon and the Gathering of friends um in the early '90s so I was way back like OG okay all right yeah all right so so I was at one I think one or two Gatherings and then the one where Katan came out um what was that like hold on total tangent I mean this is fluid so what was that like to like what was the hobby like then when katang came out I'm curious well it it was funny because I mean first of all it was like before Rio Grande Right so it was literally all these games you'd bring them over from Germany and you someone would translate them into English and so um there were fewer of them and and it was this very Niche thing right it was nobody knew about it and and it was very hard to get the games and and you know you're ordering from German retailers and you know sort of on the internet and and or you knew someone who could bring games over um I literally I had a business trip to Berlin and I came home with like two massive bags full of games um because people giving me lists and that's is the

7:59 only way to get the games okay so what was it like then when katang came out like was it so yeah I I can't even imagine it was the only I walked in cuz I I got to the Gathering and I walked in and everyone was playing the same game and I'd never seen that because like basically as many copies of Katan they could get a hold of that like they were all in use the entire time it like just took over that's crazy like there I don't I would argue there's never been a phenomenon like that probably since yeah it's just I mean because the the gaming space was so much smaller than yeah nothing like you know like there have been obviously massive hit games that everyone's gotten into but but there's so many more games so many more people that you know yeah there nothing has had an effect that's fair all right so so Katan came out then what Katan came out um I I'll and so we waited waited six months to get my German copy because there were no English copies I got that I brought it to a local magic group and um they were all like what the heck is this and then we proceeded to play it for eight hours straight um so then I took a slight detour I I moved down to Pennsylvania and sort of dropped out for a while for reasons that we don't need to go into okay and so then I came back in the earlys um back to Massachusetts um but also back to gaming and so that was was around when like power grid came out it was sort of it was uh Puerto Rico was out you know R Grande was a thing y um so it was still small but it was now like there were English translations of things that was an American market for these games um

9:32 and so it was interesting to see you know sort of how it had grown and and and so then you know got back into it and reconnected with people and obviously there's a thriving Gaming Community in Massachusetts yeah there is well I mean that's part of the reason I'm here so yeah that makes sense yeah exactly so and then really it's just sort of been a steady you know like buying more games and playing more games and and uh um um met you know some particular groups of people so you know um the group that we the Monday night group sure the the Bedford Gamers the the Joe's Eric broches Joe Huber Joe ran and Company which all of them have been on the channel before it's been a hot minute but yeah okay uh and unity games was a big was a big um uh local convention that would happen a couple times a year um and uh Steph Steph Hodge came through um and so um so yeah I mean it was it was and that really you know sort of just it was it was the the sort of that was the transition from the sort of OG Euro game right which was like sort of intended for a family game strategic but not super complex sort of evolving into you know what Euro games are now which is more Niche more complex you know the the you know not all but some point sality kind of games and you know but that so so that happened right so sort of going through that and and seeing things and um you know yeah what else so so then how how did how did High Frontier come into the world for you or

11:04 your world as it were so so interestingly it was Eric broches from the Monday night group okay um who is not a high Frontier person yeah I know but he showed up on a Monday night with high Frontier the first the very first um edition of it I just think that's funny that he showed up on a school night with high Frontier right okay all right okay so he shows up with it he shows up with it and he and he and it was also interesting because nowadays Eric is known for not wanting to play new games he actually has a goal to play as few new games as possible or below a certain number each year but he brought this new game and he was like let's play this and we we didn't get a quorum we didn't we couldn't get it played okay but he but I took one look at the map and I'm like what the heck is this game sure um yeah it it the the map is unmistakable and striking I think is a good way to put it right yeah someone I forget who has said like like if you're not sure like basically if you look at the High Frontier map you will either know it's not the game for you or you will be like I need to play this game and I I fell in the latter lad group as well right yeah so totally okay all right so you saw it didn't get it played eventually got it played well yeah so I got a copy right um and and I having unpl having not played it not played it not played it got a copy sort of worked through the rules and started to understand it um I think we got some first second edition games in with the the first second edition are more or less identical than I think some stuff was in color okay um but it didn't really take off um haha

12:34 until until 30day it's it's it's early I apologize but yeah that was funny all right so Third Edition right which is the the smaller box like it's it's not for all obviously but it's the one that I know of I think as High Frontier it was by it was by AR games and um yeah it was it was it was um um it was a nice production MH um and and it came out um I forget exactly what year it was but but it came out and I said I I got to get this like I'm going to get this played so I took it I took it back to the Gathering and I said hey we're going to play this and so we started a tradition of playing it and we sort of gradually amped up right we started with with the core the basic game and we got everyone involved and and we found people who had played before of course and when they but but you know so we got a group of people who would play it and we got up to using all of the modules that were in Third Edition which is more or less the equivalent of 01 and two well sorry there modules 01 and two in High Frontier for all corre okay um and there was combat but it wasn't as involved as the current module 3 okay so so that became a thing that we and we would play it at other places but it was always you know and it was interesting because we played it in this particular table and it was out in the open so people would come by and see the map and you know um so so that really and um you know over the course of doing that also sort of got more into the rules and understanding what was balanced and of course we came up with some minor variants nothing major but just stuff to

14:05 improve things but then also so basically house ruling house ruling yeah yeah okay all right but it was it was small stuff it wasn't like like going off and doing like completely different game just sort of like like the turn order stuff was a little bit weird but the other thing we did was just player a game improvements um so actually um um uh tetti who the the designer of ceral Confluence um he played multiple times um and surprisingly taught us all sorts of stuff about how to negotiate in High Frontier really tell me more sitting down with to was an amazing conversation about the birth of siderio that was that was pretty amazing yeah so so he I mean you know we had been approaching it just sort of as a um I would say we were approaching it as an OG Euro game right so we were competing and we were just all more or less doing our own thing right and ta is like no ta is like no you how you know like like hey I have this ability I have power stat I can give your your your spacecraft to boost you know if you you know give me give me a little just a little bit not a lot just give me a little bit and I'll do that for you and so he he started setting up a whole economy he started like like like and so and and that's standard practice in High Frontier now I think everyone or lots of people do it right but it was new to us it wasn't I mean not like negotiation was new to us but it just wasn't something that thought about right it did didn't match that type of mechanism into this game and I mean it clearly was intended right I mean the rules have a whole section on negotiation it's just we hadn't picked

15:37 up on it we weren't we weren't using it to the fullest okay so he really showed us how to take advantage of those rules okay um and so that was that was that was a lot of fun it was a real eye opener um the other thing he had was he had these great play raids because one of the problems in High Frontier is the cards are on like I want to see the back of this card it's important what's on the back of the card but I can't look and so so he had great player ra that showed that and I was like oh I I want I want to have that so I took and my made my own and and you know changed the format and this and the other thing but that was also sort of the start getting into sort of the editing of High Frontier related stuff which important all right and then from there how did you then get involved in in a more official capacity I guess be a good way to put it so you know to this day the living rules to High Frontier are published and anyone can go look at them and anyone can make comments on them um and and you know they get read and and you know I mean answered or responded to so around this time um High Frontier 4 was being produced okay um and so and you know and so there were living rules for it and um and High Frontier like High Frontier modules one and two were all done at the same time because they all came from the previous rule set right cuz you said 01 and two is effectively in the base game right or or available in third yeah yeah yeah right okay so so so module 3 was

17:07 being worked on not quite in parallel but sort of like like you know like like it was in an earlier stage of development but they were both in development at the same time and module three is combat okay so so I started just commenting extensively on the base rules just just like trying to make things more clear and and and trying to you know improve the organization and um cuz having you know I mean like like I know what I knew had opinions on what helps people learn the game better and and this is strictly uh hey I think this would make it better consider doing this that type thing just hey I because you've been working on this now for over the course of the history of the game existing right okay but so and I also was doing that on module three um and module 3 I actually got a little more involved because also the the other nicer thing was the living rules used to be in uh Google Docs MH and so I mean they're in Adobe now which is much better for formatting and accessibility but when they're in Google Docs it would be easy to say hey I want to I want to move this paragraph up to here and you you could literally just do that as a suggestion and then they could say and and then they could look and see yeah right so so for module 3 like like reordered things and and did a lot more structural stuff to try to make it easier to understand and so got more involved in the development of that and interestingly and again just because you

18:37 wanted the game to be better not because you wanted to do this in any kind of official capacity no it was just more because you know I was obsessed with the game all right as as happens right um and so in thinking about combat because one of the nice things about the combat module is there's a whole ton of economic stuff in it right like there's there's the rules for shooting at each other but then there's rules for well there's you know there's Loyalists and Independence and the independence once the war breaks out The Independents lose access to these things and the Loyals lose access to these things and there's ways to address that and so I said okay let's take that to the next level and what if the war was really sort of economic in origin so I had a whole set of rules for um basically your actions determine whether you're independent or lawy list so when the war happens that determines what side you're on so instead of it being in the current rules it's basically random what side you're on in these rules it was you know the people who did these things were on this side and people who did other things were on the other side and and so the war the war outbreak was more organic okay um and and there was some economic component to it and then this the the a particular rule for changing the economy came into module 3 and um someone else made a comment about hey we should make this instead of like a All or Nothing thing a gradual thing and the response from Phil was oh well you know that would be a separate module

20:07 and I said H so all right and for those that don't know Phil is Phil eckan the OG designer of High Frontier right okay um and so we so I started I I wrote a whole started writing a whole economy module at the time and and the no one asked you to correct no one no one said hey Jeff go do this and you so why serious like I I feel like you're you're like going from this to the like why that's a good question um so in in in real life I'm a I'm an IT person I do you know data and coding and stuff like that wait in board games you're an it weird I know it's yeah like all right um so I think I like to you know you know take systems and play with them okay and so and and you know like I did that a lot with high Frontier like one of the ways you know when you're learning High Frontier it's very um you know you can just literally just say hey like what if I had you know like these five cards from the deck what could I do with that you know like if if I had this rocket where could I go you know so so hold on cuz that is a different way than I learned High Frontier so your saying literally you have it set up on your table I I imagine I've been to Jeff's house this isn't the case but indulge me I imagine there's a room yeah that you

21:39 walk in and it's permanently like it has a it like the table is made of High Frontier and you walk it but in a serious note you have high Frontier set up and you just are like oh what if I had this what could I do like and then you basically are just playing around with the oh I wonder if or wonder what like that yeah like that with a spotlight on the board know I trust me the whole room is dark except for the table in one those little things that project the stars on the walls so you know obviously I mean that goes without saying um yeah except that um because I was doing these player raids right it was it actually sort of started as a way of testing the player AIDS so I'd be like instead of setting up the board I'd be like okay I'm going to you know I'm just like like the second card and the third card and the eighth card and the like like and then looking at the player does does that give me enough information to to put it together so this um okay my my this is all new to me all right so I'm I'm learning this as we go here this honestly reminds me of somebody like an Neo tul that when he does his graphic design he's like oh okay you put this stack of chits here oh no now the people on that side of the table can't see that so now I need to adjust it so from a a heris or a functionality standpoint you're literally testing your player AIDS in that regard a usability huh okay all right cool so so sometimes I would pull the map out and and and but far more

23:12 often I would just be like hey um you know I'm going to look at I'm going to look at it from the play raade perspective and okay um and and then and then I might you know I might pull the actual map out I might have you know a version on the computer and look at it but then say okay I can go from here you know just to get a just a rough s of it right like so it's not really not really playing the game it's just sort of like thought experiments but but now you have it all committed to memory and so you just do it in your head and that's that okay yeah that must be okay so you start doing this for the player AIDS and then from that how does that go from that to hey I want to build my own expansion module variant fill in the right word here well it's easy easy once you start editing rules right you'll say oh well I want to do it this way and you know well that's your opinion but right you know the the that maybe it doesn't make sense or the consensus is to go a different way but then you've got this stuff that you wrote and you're like well wait a minute you know like like this is interesting um and and at the time like they were saying like hey one of the whole points of of High Frontier 4 was we're going to have lots of modules and we want people to contribute ideas okay oh so that you felt like that was a direct invitation like hey Jeff we got something for you okay so what was the first okay from player Aid to first thing what is what is the direction you started in then from there it really was it was this economy stuff

24:42 that came out of um module 3 it also came out of listening to um the revolutions podcast I don't know if you oh Mike Duncan love Mike Duncan huge I I it heavy cardboard does not exist without Mike Duncan ah so allow me a little tangent now yeah um so when I first got into the hobby uh I worked in aviation which is what I did when I was in the Marine Corps and so uh working in aviation a lot of time you you're listening to music and headphones or whatever and I had just gotten turned on to podcast ah okay and I would listen to the gamut of podcast but my very first one that I found because I'm a guy it I I am required to have to think about the Roman uh Empire at least once a week if not more required sure yeah and so to fill that requirement I the first podcast I ever listened to was Mike Duncan's the history of Rome oh wow awesome um and I loved his dry wit and the whole nine yards and the way he told it little bite-sized chunks and his episode on saturnalia uh lives rentree in my head it's amazing and honest to God if that doesn't happen if I don't start with that I think oh yeah and then from there I started listening to board game podcast cooking podcast like everything but the board game podcast then it became wow I'm listening to

26:15 these and like ludology was big back in the day at that around 2013 or so and that was one along with the Dice Tower and a host of others secret cabal and all this stuff but for the most part nobody was really talking about the games that me and my friends were playing which is you know the heavy cardboard vers the deeper end of the pool and so that got me thinking well if they're not doing it somebody needs to and here you go so it all starts it all starts with Mike Duncan's History of Rome cuz Rome um but yeah okay all right so sorry so yeah so I listen to history of Rome um I'm still listening to um uh what one so so um what's the guy's name so when Mike Duncan stopped at the end of the classic Roman Empire right and and someone else picked up with the history of Byzantium when it moved to Constantinople right so they so they they've been running for very long time um and they're up to the 1200s I believe um okay all right um I'm I'm sorry that I'm forgetting his name it's a very good podcast the history of Byzantium but anyway in revolutions which is Mike Duncan's followup uh thing that he now has written books in in the whole nine yards uh revolutions going through uh different uh Revolutions in history the one on PEX porfiriana was my impetus for going and listening to the Mexican Revolution and learning that oh it's

27:47 bigger than just the poeran dynasty it's way bigger um so again it all ties back to Mike Duncan but yeah so hilariously he is currently now doing the Martian Revolution I was unaware this is amazing okay he's made up a revolution and he's podcasting on it as if it were a historical event this again go listen to oh God he he makes a reference to Hoth in one of the uh it's like it's like once every other episode he makes some dry one little dry that just is a anyway look we like my big fans um okay so he's doing the Russian Russ Martian sorry which is hilarious but in earlier revolutions podcasts he had a term called the entropy of Victory yes and and and and the meaning of that was basically whenever somebody wins in a revolution the first thing they do is Splinter um and because if you get a m a vast majority of people they and they win politically the next thing they're going to do that they don't all think the same thing they they're a coalition so they're going to split up right so that was the thing that started me was you know because it's a pro it's a problem even in the combat module today right like what if you start and everyone's on one side and and you know three against one or four against one well the reality is it doesn't work that way sure like like the four against one will split so I I made rules for that where basically in you know um when a war happened you would there would be a chart you'd rank people on the chart and people on this Center on this side people on thiser on this side if that changes if your

29:17 position on the chart changes you could do something that would cause a realignment okay and so um so it may it potentially made for a much more dynamic battle or war and addressed some of the issues that seem to be coming up in module 3 so that was the that was the initial thing that got me thinking about it was was the combination of Mike Duncan and and that problem in the game I that that warms my heart so much learning this okay all right so from making these rules now and and coming up with this I assume you're subjecting the Joe or Joe and whoever in your who that plays High Frontier and I don't don't know if this includes Jun uh as well but you're you're you're going through you're writing these rules okay you have these rules now now what what what happens with it so interestingly at this stage I didn't because I don't know why because it just didn't it didn't I think I think because they were still crystallizing right and but then what happened is um um what happened was the pandemic okay fair which right as um High Frontier 4 released like around the same release date right so I actually ended up uh my first my first official High Frontier 4 game um was on vassel um uh which is online implementation that doesn't enforce the rules and it's old

30:48 school War Games technically is what vassel was made for correct um very different than something like rally for the troops or rally troops or board game Marina and all that for those that don't know right and it's and it it supports asynchronous play right so you could you could basically like make your move and then you email the file or you have it a share or whatever and then the next person comes on and sees what you did and takes their turn so so you can also play synchronously but but supporting Asing play because the other two people I was playing with were in Italy so that that makes it difficult time zones yeah and then we and then for you know for people who are curious about the details like for auctions and stuff that are very interactive we would do it more by email or messaging or stuff to you know get around that but um that's awesome so we played that game and it took a very long time um but so then I said oh well okay now I can potentially like I actually went in and learned enough vassel editing which is not fun to to put some of this stuff in vassel and used vassel to test okay so and literally was mainly just testing solo so like so like the the the module 3 but then the economy stuff that I done I actually you know would play out solo games with it just to and and generally um multichair solo games so oh yeah so you're playing different different positions and you know or as different players like like boy does that break your brain I mean that's that's how old school War Gamers tend to solo

32:18 multiplayer war games right playing a module 012 plus house rules game with three or four players is is like yeah you know and I and I thought stress spot ex Odyssey was a lot to keep in your head okay fair enough um but so so that and that like so the the the war rules became the economy rules and and became stuff that got very well I shouldn't say very it got somewhat play tested right okay um there were other rules we were looking into there was a um um I'm forgetting his last name but there's a big contributor Powell he's he's he's credited on module 4 um he had a whole bunch of stuff for Discovery and exploration um some of which ended up in module 4 some of which is is still out there okay um so testing some of that stuff as well um but basically doing that just sort of like like hey does this stuff does this stuff just like make sense at a at a low level before someone else tries to break it can I break it right um so that that was really The Next Step was just doing a lot of that and then so then I was starting to work with poell I was starting to work with um with a couple other people on you know ideas and what made sense and is this just from being in the Discord and and and learn in like oh I'm interested in helping with this or oh that sounds cool can I try it types like how did that how again you're going from but how do you how did that even come about right it was it was the Discord and it was just be doing the living rules editing right so like like you know like you see people making lots

33:50 of comments on the living rules oh okay well this person obviously is is interested um pow Garr that yes I don't know how to pronounce that correctly Gary key Gary Chi i g i mean I believe yeah I don't know either so um but that it's Eastern European and I don't know how to pronounce it but I apologize pav but so that's that's but that yes yes exactly uh time merer over in twitch uh g a r y c k i yep so there we go he he has he's done some other games I think some of them at least I know some of them are um potentially being published I don't know exactly the stat are but he's he is a he is a he's an amazing idea guy like he has so many so many brilliant ideas so and I'm more of a play with systems guy so so it was a good combination all right um but so so that's and and and so now we started to move into this period where it was like okay what is the next module for High Frontier and now it was becoming to start starting to become slightly more official because it I was like oh well you guys have this stuff and maybe that's the next module and and let's talk about it and think about it so ion reached out then and said hey yeah right okay all right um and so um ion game design publisher of high frer for all so okay yeah and so um there was there was a little bit more of a formal review of

35:23 of the stuff that had been done and the idea was because what happened to some of my initial you know entropy of Victory economy stuff was that it was more it was it was tightly tied to a certain vision of module 3 and module 3 went a different direction okay so it didn't make as much immediate sense okay and so I think the idea was more like Discovery exploration like that side of things was what they were thinking about for the next module okay and so um so yeah so now we're moving into module 4 um and and module 4 is module 4 is Exodus is the name of it um the name came about because Interstellar was being done at the same time being uh so Interstellar the game was being designed by Phil and Justin correct okay correct and and uh it's important to point out that the Third Edition of High Frontier had on the back of the board the interstellar an earlier Interstellar board and there was a solo game that's very different from the current Interstellar um but it was it was actually you literally played it with the components from High Frontier and it was the same concept right you're going out to the stars and but it was a solo game it design okay all right so um so so there were a couple of so being a bridge to Interstellar was one design goal of module 4 okay um but per whom per I guess I would say sort of ion and Phil okay all right got it that

36:53 that's where they wanted Exodus to that's the purpose of Exodus makes sense right I mean it makes you know from a timing and theme and and that way you can do the whole and then tying it the games together I mean extends the BIOS campaign I mean makes sense right from a hey we can sell this and yeah yeah no I get her okay it because High Frontier is not long enough right you need to play other games clearly yes all right so so but then it was T and and the themes of like Discovery and exploration obviously tie really right into that yeah totally so then we sat down and said okay we're going to go through this this and and so um um Phil and Justin did an excellent job of dissecting no distilling is a better word distilling the stuff that existed and saying well this is this is like the core of it and so very quickly they said okay we're going to take there were six or eight some ridiculous number of decks boom contract decks okay um was and so and so we said okay um so the themes very quickly became the contract de the augmentation of humans into what they needed to be for Interstellar okay sort of what what's now the space porn Q in module 4 um and then the actual Interstellar stuff you know being able to say this Starship We launching the Starship now when you say this became the core now you at some point Phil and Justin basically left the design of module 4 to go design the actual game

38:26 that is inter ST which we've streamed right yeah right so yeah exactly so yeah we streamed it right so yeah and and that was cuz they were both being done at the same time because the whole point was to release them at the same time right so so they focused on that because it was more or less an entirely new game right um and I got handed module 4 I was asked and I said yes um because of all your work that you had done up to that point in volunteering just because we're nerds and like doing stuff like this yeah okay yes and and yeah exactly um and so so I took on what I would call the development some design but largely development of the ideas that we'd all come up with collectively and and we had iterated through a bunch of different ideas like like there were there were zides like XI t s like the the other other ways of doing the things that M 4 did but we said okay now this looks like the right general direction but now we have to make a whole bunch of balanced contracts okay well I did that and we and and then you know a whole all the other stuff and play testing okay um we did we so groups that I was involved in did 40 to 50 play tests of module 0124 games um you said 40 or 50 yeah play tests yeah according to my records yeah how no and I'm not even joking like that like because again if you're

39:57 watching this I assume you know High Frontier or at least know of High Frontier even if you haven't played the game High Frontier is the biggest game I've ever played it might be the biggest game that isn't a war game the the giant monster war games um I mean it's a it's a 12-h hour experience right yeah I mean I would say yeah like 8 to 12 depending on how fast you're playing okay and and so what the main the first thing that helped was tabletop stimulator okay was there were tabletop simulator um you know there's the official one and there was a there was a um unofficial one that was that had a lot of scripted stuff in it okay and so this was all done and this is again still pandemic so this was all done online and so it was very easy to say okay we're going to play for four or six or however many hours save it and then do a second session and finish it okay all right I I guess that makes sense doing it online definitely seems easier yeah yeah okay and you know it's easy to like it's much easier to make prototypes yeah yeah yeah um and stuff so so and obviously those all those were you know were iterations of the game right like like like they weren't all with the final rule set they were all hey this works this doesn't kind of stuff but so um and lots of things changed of course as things do right um and but so I I mean really um um you know shout out to Michael and space fiend and cod the people who were like the core of that group okay and and played in most if not

41:29 all of those games um okay because it was yeah I mean it was it was it was loads of fun but you know it's also work yeah it was a lot of time sure um and they got the deal there were a couple of games where like like you know what if we tried this Rule and I'm like I think that's broken I demonstrated that it was broken and they had to watch sorry okay all right but so that was a lengthy process right that was I don't know exactly how long it was a year it was somewhere and it was it was a while I would think to play that many iterations even online yeah I mean it was it was it was the whole thing was more because what would happen is we there was that initial period and then there was a refining period where I was like okay this is like 90% done okay um you know my my we had a we had a you know um yeah so there were lots of changes lots of tweaks lots of excitement um and then you know we said okay so by the time we got to the end you know of course no game is ever perfect no game is ever finished but we were pretty happy with where were we had played it a lot we knew that that um you know it was working one of the interesting things was you know there's a connection to Interstellar so there's a Starship and you you know you like get fuel for it and you can launch it um but we found we we set it up so that basically that was the focus of the module and it wasn't fun because people felt like it was work they felt like they had to do it and so we actually rebalanced it so that it was an option you know you could choose to do it which really is more in with the the theme of High Frontier right it's not about being

43:00 forced to do something it's about here's a big sandbox what do you want yeah what I wonder if right yeah yeah so so we got to a great situation where it's an option and it is a way but it's not like the person who does this wins or it's not like you have to do it to win it's a depending on the game it might make sense and it might not okay so that was so we got it to that point and um we're very happy with it so I asked this uh now you have designed credit a module 4 among others obviously but um my favorite question to ask designers developers however you want to frame that with this is you like you said it's never perfect you can iterate it into Infinity what made you say okay yes here it's we can release it in this iteration and feel good about where do you how do you how did you come to that determination and I imagine it wasn't just you alone obviously you know obviously some of it was timing and deadline and stuff okay um also actually also want to say like you're like I like to ask designers these things like like I'm like a designer no no I get it I get it but still you you had enough of a part in this to where how did either you or collectively how did this so so I had so we had gotten to the point where I had made um physical prototypes of this stuff and

44:30 we had started playing it in so this is where Joe and um Scott and the urun and and and you know other people come in and so we would be we would be playing it at the Gathering and other other cons and stuff um and so it got some outside exposure okay um it got some you know some physical testing so that we knew the components actually which you know cuz you know doing stuff on online and in person very different boy are they oh oops didn't realize that yeah yeah right um and um you know and they did a good job of of testing and breaking a few things right um by the way Yun is yurun dman of splatter he is a huge well he plays everything yeah um he's incredibly smart dude yeah and he he he so like the Starship rules for example got to where they were um in no small part because he broke them a couple times very effectively which you want right when you're play testing show me where the holes are so we can fix them right yeah both both in terms of like oh this is Runaway points but also just in terms of hey if you do this it can disrupt the game and and so okay we shouldn't let you do that right so so um so really it got to the point where yeah it was just sort of you get this feeling of diminishing returns right it's like could we make it better yeah but like we'll spend you know 12 hours making it 0.1% better and it's just not worth it okay um versus you know of course I mean that's the other thing right is is all these games have

46:00 living rules you publish it you know people are going to find things and like like at some point you just got to say okay we're going to we're going to let that happen right we'll let people discover things you know the good news is that when we published it there weren't a lot of like you know oh we misprinted this car or we did this like that stuff was pretty solid um and that in part was because I was so used to making player AIDS I was really good at like you know nitpicking this is what this card should be this is what this should be yeah yeah um but so yeah so it was really just that feeling of like not that we couldn't improve it but that it was just not becoming productive to do so and you're like yeah I'm everybody was like yeah this is this is good yeah I mean yeah people were people were not like I mean people wanted to play with this with these new rules they were fun um I I would say you know one of the things was when you play High Frontier you you set a number of of you said the turn it's a it's fixed number of turns and each 12 turns is a cycle that's the way the the game timer works so you can when you're playing with all these rules you can play five or seven Cycles um and the way High Frontier 4 had come out to play a seven cycle game there you sort of ran out of things to do some of the early stage things happened a little bit too fast and so one of the sort of you know subd design goals of module 4 was to change that pacing and it did so successfully okay so so you know people seeing that and seeing that it was working the way it was supposed to was was that was a good sign that it was right okay so that's module 4 Exodus yep

47:32 where does now how and what module five comes into existence so actually let me make one code on module four so so we finished up module 4 and said okay it's done ready to go um and then module 5 work started okay and and I'll talk about that in deep um but there was a delay and so by the time module 4 was going to print module 5 sort of existed okay and so Phil went back and said hey there's these things in module 5 I want to make module 4 work with them so I want to make these changes to module 4 okay and they were not fully tested um and they work great they make total sense when you're using module 5 right to to tie in to module five right sure but on their own they made less sense okay and so I you know um disagreed um but but that's how that's how it went to print okay with those changes so I um produced and it's on BGG now a variant it's called The Exodus 2022 variant because that was the version of the rules that basically just sort of restores things to that version of the rules before those changes to tie in module 5 correct okay and so so you know in my opinion if you're going to play module 4 module 012 and 4 you should go find that variant and use it you'll have a much better time so to be clear 01 2

49:02 and four without five use that variant with five you don't need the variant five five when you use module five it it tells you you know basically like it said yeah if you're using five and four you do these things instead and they make sense and and everything good okay got it okay cool all right good so that was happening so let's but now talk about module five um so I had you know written a whole bunch of economy stuff and and probably in part from watching Mike Duncan um and from other watching other things like I don't know say the expanse right and reading the expanse which I did first um you know I was very which is Awesome by the way I just finished the series like six months ago was awesome yeah reading and the show are both very good they're different in good in different ways right um so I was very interested in that balance between Earth economy and ET econ IE rest of the solar system so I had a whole bunch of stuff about that where like you know obviously at the beginning everything's centered on Earth but over time you would expect to see you know like independent economies develop and they would not be efficient and they would be bad but but if you use them they would get better and then they would be independent and all that and and of course if you're thinking about a war that stuff becomes super relevant right if you have a war with Earth and Earth Cuts you off from you know their computer systems well how do you do Fino like you know how do you how do you so that kind of stuff was was um in the economy module um along with just the raw economy part of it so that

50:34 was what was going into and then there was stuff with with like setting up trade routes and and um and commoditizing patents and stuff like that um but so um instead for module 5 so so there were um three main people involved in module 5 me Phil and um rerio who's who's a newer a new a newer designer and he's been very Central to module 5 okay and the decision was made to have it focus on um stock and companies okay and so so now in module 5 yeah just you may be thinking of something yeah some some game genre that has to do with stocks companies it it they they look similar to what's over your shoulder right there not not the game but the picture yeah so okay right this so interestingly this is not 18xx or steam in space right um which which obviously is the first thing you'll think of when you see hear companies and share right um because the company because while the players will get stock in the companies the companies are sort of a sideline to the the factions that are actually going out and doing the exploration so um the the that's this this the central focus of module 5 is that notion of these companies are going to exist and they're going to help these factions do things and obviously you can invest in those companies and doing so can get you victory points and and and um currency

52:07 and and other things um but but the success of the company that it's like the company can do great it's not directly relevant to who wins the game okay um and so the short explanation is standard High Frontier every turn you get an operation and movement you get to move all your rockets and you get to do one other thing in module five you get to move all your Rockets you get to do an operation and then you get to do a financial transaction okay and a financial transaction could be buying selling so buying stock it could be using a company and the companies do things that you might otherwise do with an operation so boosting stuff from Earth into space or um um things like that there's other things they do we have to get into the details but so now your turns become more efficient but potentially because you know instead of I can only do one thing on my turn now I can do two things and it's not exactly the same set of things I can do but there's but it expedites the main thing that you're trying to do right right and so if you're clever you set up situations where hey I'm being twice as efficient because I'm doing two things instead of one and right arranging those clever situations is obviously the point and I want to do it in a way that helps the companies that I've invested in and hurts the companies and the companies actually do you know do these things so there is the company that boosts thing and the company that you know handles um you know avoiding hazards and and so so it's the companies are very specific and direct and you can have competing companies that do the same thing um and there's of course lots of other detail

53:39 to it so um it's really interesting I mean it's it's it's a it's a very different experience because you have to totally rethink how you go about succeeding in High Frontier um the the the the other impact though is of course when you have you know and and and actually this goes back to Third Edition in Third Edition you could get lots of actions on a turn there were a way to do that and it was fun but it really slowed the game down sure because hey I have like I have like you know you could have four or five actions on a turn well which ones do I take and what order do I take them in and you know so the same thing happens in module five where it's like now I've got these two things and I got to think so the turns got longer and so what they did was they reduced the number of turns it's a fix turn game so generally when you play module 5 you have fewer turns um because you have more actions you're you're you're able to do as much but over a shorter amount of turns exactly but not necessarily shorter shorter amount of time right right I don't think I think in general so the other thing that happened is so so I was involved in the early stages of this a lot of module five yeah okay then you know real life sort of did real life things right and I just had less time to spend on it so um you know I was less involved in the latter half of it um so so I'm saying things and I'm sure there are things that are not 100% accurate because I don't have you know module four I play tested all the way through right module

55:10 5 less l so um but yeah so there's there you can do you you generally do the same amount roughly the same duration but yeah shorter number of turns okay all right so that's module five and then there are two other side I I what do you how do you term them tools the yeah how do you they yeah they have an approach so there's a so well actually another another backpack yeah yeah so one of the things we did in module 3 or I did in module 3 yep was um I I went to gamecrafter and I made a bunch of other player aids for High Frontier Third Edition um and some of them were just status things right so like you know like what government is in charge it's hard to tell because it's on this tiny little thing so here's a card that CHS you um or the costs to sell things would change in Third Edition so what's the current well here's a big thing that was the number tells you but it also had a bunch of for all the Futures which are like endgame mini quests that you could do they're all on these little cards that can be all over the board so here's a card a and for those that don't know that board it's not small it's bigger than your average uh it's you need you need an excessively large table to play the blown up version of it right so it's hard to see is the point so I had made those cards using gamecrafter right um and actually so when we um I I don't if it's the first stream we did together or one of the early ones we did together where we did a high Frontier 4 with the three

56:41 components right I brought those cards right and that became tool pack one okay which is the same set of cards for for High Frontier 4 um and so so so the to so again it's just ease of play right it just helps things okay it's less about like it's less about new rules and new stuff and more about stuff to sort of you know to help you play I think I think in tool pack one there were like three new cards it just a little like a little bit of stuff but it was basically stuff to help you play all right and now so that's so there's a tool pack two which is going to have some of that stuff um to sort of just you know I think there's actually some map like physical things you can put on the map just because a couple systems have been added to the map over time not a balanced thing not an AATA thing just hey like you know um we found a new Comet and quality of life things yeah quality of life or just just like you know CU what's on the map is sort of a an intersection of things that are close enough to get to in game terms and things that are interesting and so hey there's a new interesting thing there's a new comment well okay I'll put the comment on the map okay got it okay um and some updated cards in that in that vein then there's an expansion which I guess is smaller than a module um that has actual new rule stuff okay so go for it so the big one from my perspective is one of the things about High Frontier is you get your little crew faction um it's got an asymmetric player power that you get to use but when you're playing the

58:11 long game you don't get to use it until you know some number until you've sort of built your first little space station R Earth your first burnol um and um so we said and the crew factions were not balanced for the long game like some of them are just really bad in the long game okay like the one that says hey you get two Aqua once um yeah so we came up with a set of crew cards that were designed for the long game okay they were they were designed assuming that you had module 012 and 4 um and they were actually we we were testing them at heavon last year okay so they were used in the in the um heavy con game we played and and a couple people got to see them so you get your faction power from the beginning the faction powers are designed for the long game and the other change we made is each faction is a single card has two sides as cards do and so there's a different ability on the back side that you may switch to when you get your initial space station up and running okay so so that meant they could be a early game ability and a late game ability that were different and could balance them differently now when you say long game unpack that a little bit so long game is a 5 60 turn game or a 784 turn game generally using modules 0

59:43 1 two and four okay and optionally three right three being combat which is optional some people love it some people are like not the type of experience I'm wanting to have yeah like for me combat is very interesting but it's a once in a while kind of thing some people love it and play it all the time um but but it it's yeah you really have to get it because it's it's combat right like you can you can effectively eliminate people if they're not paying attention space is hard enough just Saye okay um shout out to Felix um so so um that's the long game and so so and you know like you said it takes take 12 hours to play right um and yeah it's just it's just no fun hey I'm starting to play 12 hour game oh I get to Aqua great so this now balances that for that longer experience yeah and so there's so there's two there's going to be at least two um options per color you can pick one or the other and then each of those has two different abilities and you can short or early game late game right yeah right and it's it's it's your decision with constraints but you're never forced to switch so if you like your early game and want to keep it for the rest of the game knock yourself out right yeah problem okay so we are there's going to be module 5 compatible ones as well so the idea is whether you're playing with module 5 or not you will have at least two options for each color Okay as to what to be because obvious the module 5 makes some fairly drastic changes to the economy and so

1:01:14 some things just don't work in that context or aren't balanced in that context I should they work but they're not useful right so we're making sure that there's options in that in that scenario okay um and you said this is in the expansion is the do we have a name for the expansion I think it's just expansion one I it I don't think it has a thematic name that I'm aware of okay um so that's one thing okay um it's also got some um early game achievements or challenges I think the promo pack 2 had achievement cards which were just like you know if you go to this thing you get these victory points but they're more late game they're more like go out to Pluto and do stuff yeah that takes a while yeah this is more like hey in in the early game if you do this you get some stuff and it may be victory points or it may be something else to springboard you onto later stuff to springboard you and a a little bit of springboarding a little bit of making people aware of things because when you're new to High Frontier there you know there's so many different rules there's things you don't think about so yeah stuff like that to basically say okay like like give you a little Direction in the early game um and then you know there's there's the the most exciting thing that people have been claming clamoring for which is dirt I know the chat's going wild right now I know I know like yeah calm yourselves easy so in High Frontier yeah you got three types of fuel you've got water right You' got isotope which is like and then you've got dirt CU there are Rockets you

1:02:44 throw dirt out the back right if you push it that way you go that way makes sense right yeah and it's yeah it's great because like you know water and isotope are sort of hard to find out in the solar system but dirt you know pretty common yeah got a shovel like we're good so in um in High Frontier 4 if you have a there are dirt Rockets um and you can basically fuel them instantly um and you can get as much dirt as you want just shovel it in and you're good yeah but ba but for component reasons they basically you're not allowed to stockpile dirt like you can put dirt in an active rocket but you can't like you can't you can't unload it and put it in an outpost or save it or store it and because there are rules on when you you have to have someone with you to refuel effectively it's a little more complicated than that you know there are situations where it's like oh if I could have stock why couldn't I just stockpile dirt so when a rocket shows up I could just you know so um expansion one adds in the components to do that and and changes the rules to balance it you don't you didn't design this aspect of why dirt is or isn't why wasn't it any idea I'm C I'm just curious just now we're just two dudes talking here I mean I I think it it literally was a component question of how many of these little beads will we need to track to track dirt okay um you know that's a lot we don't want to do

1:04:15 that okay that's fair no to totally in that honestly that's a reasonable I I think that's that's been said on Discord or in somewhere that's not a not a secret um and and um and that's the problem right if you if you use the current rules you could stockpile infinite dirt and well that's a lot of components um so so the rules will tweak a little bit which is what you know not maybe exactly what they were in Third Edition but something along those lines of yeah okay now it actually takes time to get dirt and you get this much dirt but you can do it in advance right you know so you can figure out when you need it okay all right got it um so and that and again that's an option you don't have to use it um but but um it's definitely something that some people miss it it's a in a game that's pretty thematic it's a thematic inconsistency okay so it's nice to see that sort of balanced out okay oh and then the other thing is really important is I can never tell if this is serious or not until we get the punchline um High Frontier has heroism chips okay right for like newbie miscalculation and sure yeah yeah it's basically voted on by the players right like yeah be like it it it was a marvelous fail you get that right yeah yeah so so they're going to include some some um some of those chits for experts okay there's going to be expert miscalculation you know so you should have known better but you still made this mistake okay um but these are going to be

1:05:45 more flavor than because the the the the Newbie ones you get victory points for right these ones are going to be more like you know put it on your wall yeah I got you um you know littering so if you dump a bunch of stuff at his sight like you know like no yeah no no you littered like um and and my favorite is you know is is the the award for busting Hera which is one of the asteroids because as we say it's not a game of High Frontier until someone busts Hera okay I mean obviously yes um it is a almost inevitably someone goes to it and almost inevitably they fail um that's just the way it works even when they should succeed it's just the dice hate them right so so those are going to be in there you know those are good for a good laugh okay um so um I think and there's going to be some co-op stuff which I'm I didn't come from me not that won't be involved but it didn't come from me okay um but yeah I mean I think I think if you want to play the long game um a module 01245 um the crew cards will be good and you know we'll make a material difference all right you still enjoy it oh yeah definely still enjoy it so what's the why why High Frontier I no judgment here I know it's just why though like what is the appeal because it is so different than anything else in this hobby well that's one of the reasons right it's it is it is not like other games um but I

1:07:16 mean it's it's a it's it's a really good combination of theme and good gameplay um cuz you know a lot of a lot of of ionc Madre games have great theme but it's fun to play but the gameplay is you know it's not it's not bad but it's not competitive High Frontier is you know like like there's a competitive game you're you're doing stuff the stuff you do is is you know like affects whether you win or not you then get random things happening to you but you feel like you're going out in space like you know you feel like you're powering a rocket you know you get that like I'm exploring space I'm going to the far planets and that that theme appeals to me um and it doesn't seem less thematic the more I play it um if anything it probably seems more thematic the fact that all the cards are built using like real science right um you know they're all stuff that even if they're theoretical like it's yeah but it's like theoretical like okay we we made this assumption then we did the math to see what the thrust would be or what the this would be how much energy it's all that stuff so so it has that realistic feel to it which again helps with theme um and and there's a lot going on like that's the thing is that like it never gets to the point where um it's just oh I know exactly what I have to do for the rest of the game no problem like there's always like I better not do this I better not do that you have to manage so many different things that you know and risk yeah and risk right um cuz space is

1:08:47 hard and and and and things blow up right yeah it happens um so yeah so that it's just it it's definitely you know continues to be interesting and challenging so so yeah I I think it just it it it um and you know like it's there's always because it's a complicated game and because the rules are not perfect you know there's always that challenge of how can we make it easier to understand you know more approachable yeah more approachable I mean yeah yes exactly what would you say to people where they're like oh a 12h hour game where I can spend all these hours trying to do this thing and I roll the die won't won don't do that fair all right I mean it's interesting actually one of our one of our players um frequently plays High Frontier with the goal of not making any roles okay because you can again it's all about mitigation it's just time effort and all of that because invariably when he when he makes a roll he fails it okay well there's something to be said for consistency so but yeah so so I mean you can you know you can play a very risk averse game of High Frontier it's you know it can be harder in some respects but there's no risk um right so um or very very low right but the bigger thing I would say is the long game is 12 hours or whatever it is right um you know when you if you play the base game you know it can be I mean once

1:10:19 you know what you're doing it can be 60 to 90 minutes you your first game could be two to three hours um and so you know there's lots of space in between those two for um and this is where adding the modules in comes into play yeah exactly and even like like it's surprising to me playing playing the long game with two people is really fast um it is it is keep this in mind this is Jeff who's the resident expert saying this but relatively fast CU part it just I think it's because there's you know I I not to know why it is exactly I think it's just because there's less to think about right well there's less downtime because less players I mean inevitably right and the auctions go faster because there's only two people right but so you know like cuz like a 12-h hour game might be four people a two hour a two person game could be like you know four to five hours um of with everything what about a six player game I did that once yeah yeah yeah so I think it was uh yakup in chat reference something that you said about the six player uh yeah six player is is you know if you like cord you should do six player once um but yeah yeah um like the big challenge I mean first of all there's a lot of downtime um but it's also like you get like like patent scarcity like some of the decks the decks will run out and and if you don't have the cards that you need you will not have an option because there won't be any more right um and with five players that happens a little bit with six players it happens a lot all right

1:11:49 so what is what is your favorite I don't know a favorite when you guys play yeah at the Gathering of friends right you yo joe so on and so forth right Lou right player count and what's your ideal set up so I would say I I would say four is is generally like like to me it's probably four then three then five for player count player count yeah um and five is fine it's just it's just a little bit longer it's just you know so like four probably optimizes that you get good diversity you know but but the length is about where we want it okay um we'll play module 012 and four okay um we've been using the new crew cards that are you talking in the expansion for a little while now um we um before we used those we actually used promo pack one which had a which had a station fall um tie in so that's awesome so the station from station fall is in is in High Frontier in in low orbit and at some point it falls and well it may or may not fall actually um and if it falls it just goes away if it doesn't then Project X shows up and there's six different cards so you get a different wacky project okay um which is just funny but weirdly the main reason we used it is that the other rule is if you have your crew on the station fall station you get your faction privilege so it was a way to get around that restriction of you don't get your power

1:13:20 early in the game so that that just made it fun um but what I mean in part we came up with the crew cards to avoid that issue so we started using those instead okay um so four four players ideally modules 012 and four yep the new crew cards yep what else anything um I'm trying to think it's um oh well we we use the The Exodus 2022 variant of module 4 right because you're not using module 5 so therefore right okay um we we have not um um we need to we need to do a module 5 game we will at some point do a module 5 game just we didn't we did one early on and we said hey we're going to wait till it's a little bit more of a final stage which I think it's end so we we need to do that and I just I don't have a physical prototype so I haven't haven't and and there's because you got to make a stock market and there's more to do and I just was like um I don't have time okay fair enough because real life yeah um I think that's it I don't we mean we don't really play with a lot of we don't need to play with a lot of house rules other than the module 4 variant we pretty much play it as printed obviously it's changes a lot because um living rules so we do try to play with the current living rules okay and how long does that go for usually I know the answers I'm these are softballs but that's okay because I'm at the Gathering and I I go by the room I check in a couple times throughout the day how are things going in space and I would 12 hours is about the number 12 and that's with you know we'll we'll order dinner

1:14:52 and you know like there's a little bit of food break in there about 12 hours and snack of choice snack of choice um well I mean Pizza is the is the dinner actual dinner food right um snack of choice that's a really good question um I mean actually it's probably Donuts in the morning okay and cookies in the afternoon okay there you go so sugar all right yeah well I mean the brain's a muscle you got to give it you know food so all right anything else um no I don't think so I mean you know other than the fact that you know um I I heard you did sort of a long stream recently so yeah last night that was uh so it I have two last things to talk about and then and then we'll wrap it up but number one stress biotics Odyssey Jeff had never heard of it and hold on wait you like unique yeah you like kind of wacky and thematic he's like you're bringing stress biotics Odyssey to the Gathering right I was like yeah he's like so when we're getting ready for this for the last 20 minutes before we go live here's Jeff all right yeah so um that's kind of cool that's fun so yeah we're definitely going to bust out uh stress biotics and he's like okay yeah you seem into it right yeah yeah and the second question is the table big enough number

1:16:24 one and number two we going to run it back High Frontier yeah that's what I'm saying like yeah you know like like like you know got to do a real long stream so here's my question I'm the weak point in this game because I obviously play it once in a blue moon sure right sure but of the local group yeah we could have you Joe and maybe a third sure and then I just basically I'm camera boy in that regard yeah what what what do you think to that idea absolutely I mean I think I I I bet I I bet Lou would do it he's a regular right um but I know there are other people who would be interested yeah absolutely that would work F I think I mean it would go you know why don't it probably wouldn't break the record it would probably be a shorter a shorter stream it would because I'm not the slow point now I'm not I'm not volunteering anybody for this but depending on timing of things and if your Run's able to make it to con this year y call me call me biased no offense Lou but I would love for Yun to be the third in that and I think that would be a lot of fun I yeah it would I mean yeah he's always fun to play with yeah and and and you guys get to actually watch him Crush oh does Yun never not win oh yeah sure yeah really well you say sure like it's I mean I mean and again that's not to diminish you guys just my experience with Yun is basically outside

1:17:57 of the rare occasion he just wins everything he plays he is a very very smart person excellent game player yes he is and and he definitely I mean but I mean I I mean so we've been playing this inperson group for a while and he wins Lou wins I've won um um yeah okay so there you go I won't mention any other names right yeah yeah no I I I hear you um so yeah no I hear you Samuel says you can't be camera boy you're the man that we're all attached to I get it but so look I realize you guys enjoy watching my head just burst into flames but from a I I want to show off the game how well it can be now I I've already done a stream that I've been a part of so now being able to do a a higher level if you will and it's just a matter of making everything fit and and scheduling and but that is something that I would like to do sometime in 2025 I would do it either way I'd be happy to have you play I'd be happy to have you be camera boy right that's that's really yeah sort of between you your stream and your table yeah yeah no I I I got you so yeah we're the the the the hope is to make that happen oh so yeah I have one last thing you made me think of it because the only problem with playing here we have to use the small board right right when we play at the Gathering other conventions we use the big board yeah and that's my other minor obsession with this game is the we

1:19:28 use the the all Lego components that that that I made so if you follow me on social media or you're a patron I promise I'm going to do a bit of a I'm going to do a thread to where I want to actually show off your ridiculous and again it's a compliment but your ridiculous tricking out of the Lego High Frontier yeah it's uh it was it's it's it's it was a lot of Lego a lot and and to be fair someone had done a Third Edition version of it which I built on so some of like not all the designs are unique to me but I did build some new stuff for for fourth so right it is definitely cool and and um yeah that's the other two things that they're coming out with is a an insert which I don't know much about because I I have so much stuff that I can't use any standard insert Legos um and a market stand which is like a thing that just holds up the cards that you can available for bid and we used one that I 3D printed but it's just nice cuz it's a table space safer um and it gives you sort of just easier to see the stuff that it's obviously very important because auctions are an important part yeah it it actually reminds me of my power grid uh you know it's basically yeah to where it has the but I do it laying down cuz cameras but same idea right and just less table space yeah yeah and we wouldn't use it if we're streaming obviously for some reason but when we do it in person it's nice because it just yeah saves table space and makes stuff easier yeah so the Gathering of friends late April I'll be posting a whole bunch of pictures about that yeah so all right awesome thank you for doing this today man I appreciate uh

1:20:59 I'm excited I Your Enthusiasm is infectious when it comes to this uh and uh to to be fair you don't play High Frontier to the exclusion of other games I mean basically anything space related looking at you terraforming Mars and others I play yeah I play non-space related games too um we're you know we're doing last seventh Citadel um but but yeah I I I I definitely like the Space theme and and and a good space game gets my attention so yeah all right awesome Jeff thanks for doing this y'all thanks for uh hanging out hopefully you enjoyed it if you did please like And subscribe consider supporting the show patreon.com hchq I will be back in an hour and a half with Joshua Costa and the hchq crew we're doing back-to-back age of Steam maps both of which are neon Comet so Joshua is half of neon Kam him and hero uh so I actually have them being pressed down right now by a bunch of games hopefully they will lay flat and I'll see youall in about 90 minutes I'm Edward I'm Jeff y'all have a good one thanks for hanging out bye y'all