Episode 86: Daniel Newman - Indie Game Markets, Trick Takers that stood out to us and connecting ...

0:00 Game night isn't just about the rules. It's about how it feels to play. The weight of the pieces, the clarity on the table, the little upgrades that make everything click. The Board Game Geek Store is built for players who want more from their games. Offering premium upgrades like Geekup bits, smart accessories, and exclusive designs that enhance play, reduce friction, and make every session more satisfying. If you care about how your games look, feel, and play, visit boardgamegeekstore.com and level up your table. Hello and welcome to episode 86 of the Boardgame Geek Podcast, where we geek out about board games, the mechanisms behind them, and the people who create them.

0:45 I'm your host, Amanda Panda, and today I'm here with Daniel Newman from New Mill Industries.

0:53 How's it going?

0:54 Thank you so much for being here. Yeah. No, I'm uh super excited to be doing this.

1:00 You are a designer and a publisher. Is that correct?

1:04 Yeah. Yep. 100%. Yeah. I've been I've been designing games for oh, I don't know 10 15 years at this point. Um a wide range of stuff. I started out doing Euros and uh lately I've been focusing more on like trick taking and climbing games. And then I started New Mil Industries in guess technically 2020. Kind of it was a co baby. you know, we were we were cut off from conventions and stuff. Me and and uh Tony Miller started the company as a way to kind of keep involved with the board game scene. And it started out we were we were doing our games that uh maybe, you know, we had we had pitched to publishers and we got good feedback, but but it wasn't quite right for them. So, we're like, well, maybe we could just do these ourselves, these small weird games, and figured out a way to do it um kind of cost effectively. Uh, and then after that, uh, I kind of got really into trick- taking and and pivoted away from kind of what we were doing previously and Tony got really busy with work after kind of the COVID lockdowns lifted and, uh, so he stepped away and I just kind of took the ball and and rolled with it.

2:05 Now I understand why it's called New Mill Industries.

2:08 Yeah, Newman and Miller.

2:12 So, is uh, doing board games, you know, publishing and designing your full-time job now?

2:17 I mean, it's it's the only thing I'm doing. It does not keep me full-time busy, unfortunately, and it doesn't make full-time money, but it is my my primary occupation aside from going to the movies as often as I can.

2:29 Oh, okay. So, what's the newest movie that you've watched and enjoyed?

2:33 So, I saw 102 movies in the theater last year.

2:36 Wow.

2:37 Which was insane. Thank you AMC A-list for letting me uh make that not crazy expensive. Last movie that I saw that I really loved was No Other Choice, which is a um a Korean movie from Park, I think is the director. Yeah. 102 different movies in the theater. And that doesn't include the like half dozen that I saw twice or the like three or four that I walked out of cuz I wasn't enjoying it. So, I went to the movies a lot last year. Had a lot of time on my hands. Going to the movies was the biggest thing I missed during the co lockdowns. And as soon as it was safe to go to the movies again, that's I just started going like crazy. And then this year was ridiculous. But yeah, I just love going to the movies. There we are.

3:16 Back onto the topic of board games. How long have you been designing board games in the industry?

3:22 I want to say probably about 10 years. My first published design was Ahead in the Clouds with Buttonshy Games. And that was after I had been at it for about a year or so.

3:33 That's 2017.

3:35 So it's been Yeah. about 10 years, which is pretty wild. my wife and I. So, we had a kid in uh 2009. He was like four or five and we had played games together for a long time. But when you've got a toddler, it's hard to have the energy to do much other than like

3:54 sit in front of the TV together. We enjoyed playing board games. Like, why don't we try designing something together? And we kind of made a list of the games that we really liked and mechanisms and things that we enjoyed. And we started to put together an idea and I we started working on it together. And then I found a play testing group that was local to me and I started going to that and then she just kind of slid away from the project as I got more excited about it. And that game never really came to much. I wound up pitching it to a couple publishers but uh it wasn't it wasn't quite good enough. And then yeah, I just kind of got obsessed and that became my my hobby from there. And we still play games together just not not as often.

4:27 And do you have a good regular gaming group or do you mainly just go play test games? I wish um there's a discord that I'm on pretty regularly run by another designer and I play a lot of card games online there. Um and there's another Discord that's related. We do a Sunday afternoon mostly trick taking games and other card games and all my play testing is is online now too. So I I rarely play with other people anymore. Um I've got a couple friends who I meet up with maybe a couple times a month to play some games and then um I'll go to like little buddycons. There's two or three a year. Well, it's like very intense like trick taking game conventions over like four or five days. Most of my playing in person is is done at those.

5:09 That's awesome. I don't really I don't really have a a local game group anymore.

5:12 I have a hard time playing a lot of trick taking games because I want to just play one after the other after the other, but then most of my friends are like after the second or third one. So, I'm like, man, I should go to one of your cons and just play trick taking games. There's so many out there.

5:27 Oh my god, it's it's ridic. And I'm I'm going to drop some that that you may not have ever heard of. So, I'm I'm excited about that.

5:33 That's great. I love that.

5:34 I I am lucky that I found a couple of groups um that just like to get together and play trick taking games all day every day for four or five days in a row. Like that's just heaven. Cuz my wife also like I can get her to play a game.

5:48 Maybe we'll play three or four hands of it and then she's like, "Okay, I'm done." I'm like, "You're done. What are you talking about? I've got all these other ones to play. What do you mean you're done?" So finding other people with that excitement and enthusiasm to just sit and churn out some trick takers is yeah that's the dream.

6:01 A little sneak peek of of the five game list that we have a little bit later on. So you are pretty active on Blue Sky. Do you have other social media that you're also active in?

6:12 That's really it. I mean I'm kind of a lurker on Instagram but I don't really post on Instagram. I mentioned that there are a couple of Discords that I'm really active in but those are kind of like gated communities. Like they're they're kind of invite only. It's a little different than than kind of more open access social media. Um I was really big on Twitter before Blue Sky and before Twitter became gross. And I'm still there mostly to keep in touch with um the Japanese gaming scene.

6:37 Um cuz Japan hasn't really moved over to Blue Sky to keep up with all the Tokyo game market releases and stuff. I need to stick with Japanese Twitter.

6:44 Oh yeah,

6:45 you brought some of them from like the Tokyo game market from Japanese publishers through New Correct.

6:51 Yeah, totally. There's been a combination of making printing new editions, publishing new editions of Japanese games that were originally at Tokyo Game Market and then every time I go, I go twice a year now. Um, I'll bring back a bunch to sell to kind of share those games here for this market. So, that's been that's been super fun and super cool and building those relationships with folks cuz it it tends to be the same designers uh and like publishing groups that I I bring stuff back from. So, they're getting used to me like reaching out like a couple weeks before game market. I was like, "Hey, can I get 30 copies of this?" I like, "Yeah, sure." So, that's been super fun. What I wind up doing is picking like seven or eight titles and bringing 30 copies of each back.

7:31 Okay.

7:32 And then I I put them up on my website and I let folks know through my mailing list and on Blue Sky. But it's nuts how quickly they go. Like, most of them are sold out within two minutes of me posting, sometimes within like 30 seconds of me posting. It's a bit of a feeding frenzy, like throwing chum in sharkinfested waters. But it's great because then that that basically pays for my trip to Japan.

7:54 Oh, nice.

7:55 So, it's like one day of work running around the convention and buying stuff and loading up my suitcase and all of that. And then I get to go to Japan for two weeks, which is pretty amazing.

8:04 Yeah, that's one of my conventions that I have on my bucket list is the Tokyo Game Market.

8:09 Oh, yeah.

8:10 And it happens twice a year. Is that correct?

8:13 Yep. once usually in May and once in December, although I think this next one is closer to Essen. It's going to be like late October. I have to double check this. The the uh fall one. The next one is is in May in the spring. So, yeah, that's been amazing. Like life-changing to be able to go to Japan twice a year. Like I'm I still pinch myself that I get to do that.

8:31 Is your Japanese good?

8:34 I speak a little bit. I've taken some lessons. I did Dualingo a while ago and and then I've taken some inerson lessons and some online like one-on-one lessons. I understand the basic rules like I I can read a little Japanese as long as there's no kanji but I can read katakana hiragana and I can write it also.

8:50 Wow, you're much better than my Chinese I can't even imagine. But

8:55 yeah, the the problem with reading it is that there are three written Japanese languages and they're all just kind of thrown in and like there's no spaces between words. So there's a lot of reading it and trying to figure out what's being said. Um and context is really important. Japanese is funny because the the rules are very logical and always the same. So in English you we don't follow rules, but in Japanese kind of like German. Yeah. SA is always saw. I don't know. It's it's easier to to kind of guess how things are pronounced because they always follow the same patterns.

9:26 For this podcast, our main topic is going to be about indie game markets that's popped up all over conventions. It was really big in 2025, but I do believe New Mill started it at the PAX Unplugged 2024 though, correct?

9:43 Uh yeah, the first there was one game market that popped up right before I think in like the October before the the PAX unplugged one. Um but I believe I had announced at the indie games night market earlier. Yeah. So PAX in 2024 we had I think 20 vendors. Um, and I think we pulled in about 500 people in the line. They stopped counting at like 480 something. People lined up a couple hours before we opened. Like it was nuts. And it was a huge success. So, we went ahead and did it again 2026. Um, I was actually unable to attend because it was the exact same weekend as Tokyo Game Market. So, I wasn't even actually at any games night market this this past time, which was a bummer. But, I heard, you know, from everybody who attended and the vendors that it went off like gang busters once again. Um, and then other ones have popped up in other parts of the country, which is super cool. I mean, the impulse was to bring something like Tokyo Game Market to the US because the the culture around indie games is so different there than what you can find here. And I just wanted to bring more of that that energy and that attitude towards games to the US. It's a little frustrated with the way that the game design and and game publishing scene works in the US. And I like seeing the experimentation and stuff that happens in like Japan and Korea. The willingness to take risks on weird games. It's just really inspiring.

11:04 Or weird to see that weird stuff

11:05 themes. Yeah.

11:07 Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

11:09 There's just there's a there's a looseness there that is is very cool to see.

11:13 I agree. What is your definition of indie game? What's the difference between a normal publisher that's one to five people versus like a indie game that you're having selling at your markets?

11:28 So, at our at the indie games night market, it's typically just like one person and they don't have a company necessarily, right? It's just somebody who wants to make a thing and sell it. Often in Japan at the Tokyo game market, it's the same thing. Like you'll go and Washikamaru is selling his newest game or two. He's like a graduate student at university and he comes to and he designs games just in his spare time and he always has something new for the game market and it's just him selling it at his booth. There aren't a lot of publishers kind of in the way. There definitely are some like larger publishers at game market but the majority of it is almost more flea market vibe than what you might think of as board game convention. So that's kind of the ideal to me in terms of indie is just like they make it sometimes with stuff they buy at Daiso, the dollar store, because it's cheap and they can handmake it themselves and that's it. I don't think all indie games have to be that way that handmade or or anything like that. But I think it's more of an attitude um of not necessarily doing it because you want to make money on it, but because it's like something like that's passionate, something you want to make.

12:34 And then obviously, yeah, if you're doing it yourself or with a friend or, you know, smaller production.

12:38 Yeah. So, what are the criteria for someone who wants to sell their games at the indie game market?

12:44 So, there aren't a lot of criteria. Um, you need to be able to bring like at least 20 copies, otherwise like you're not going to be able people are are not going to be able to buy it, right? There's a lot of excitement um for stuff, but I don't want people to think they have to bring a hundred because they may not sell through those. So, that's the first thing. Specify that. don't this isn't for people who are about to run a Kickstarter and are trying to get attention for their game to sell it on Kickstarter. The idea behind the game market is this is for people who don't want to sell on Kickstarter or use crowdfunding. Like this is another venue for it, right? So I don't want anything that's currently on Kickstarter that you're planning to Kickstarter in a year. If you decide after the game market like it did well and you want to run a Kickstarter, that's fine. I don't care. But it's want to have people focusing on this as an alternative. No AI art was a big thing.

13:30 I don't accept RPGs because I feel like there's already places for people to kind of sell RPGs and I wanted to have the focus a little more on not traditional but tabletop experiences that aren't role playing games. It's it's not necessarily the right audience and I don't want people to be disappointed if they bring an RPG and it doesn't sell cuz nobody's looking for it. There's details on the application when that application is up. Um but that's pretty much it. I just had people say like, "Yeah, I'll bring this many at least this many. It's it's uh I'm not using IP that somebody else owns." I think might be on there.

14:00 I'll put the link to the website and the forum uh in the description of the podcast. But yeah, I do love that X Unplugged is that kind of middle sweet spot of cons for me where it has good enough of playing and then good a good exhibit hall. So, I feel like this like fits very well in there. In 2025, I went to the Dice Tower West had a game market. They call it game market Vegas. And there also about, you know, you have to bring at least 20. It's not on Kickstarter. And then the midnight market was online, but it only had five to six small games that were done that was sold right away. So,

14:41 Mhm.

14:41 I love how it pops up, how this is a good trend, right?

14:46 Yeah. I I think we probably did with Indie Games Night Market set a bit of a precedent for how these should be run. Um, and it's cool to see other people like take the ball and roll with it. I know Taylor Reiner who did the game market west is a good friend of mine so it was cool. I was very excited that he kind of did one and I think he had been thinking about it. I think there were a few people when I finally launched the idea. I think there were people that had been mulling it over and just needed somebody else to kind of make the first push. And then you mentioned Pax Unplugged. It's a great partner for game market because we have a pretty large captive audience. It happens right after the vendor hall closes. So people are leaving and they're like what is this huge line? And PAX is known for doing some weird stuff. They're cool with playing around with different events and things. I think it's a great fit and I'm happy to be partnering with them. They they've been awesome

15:34 and helping support it.

15:35 I think there was one in like Tennessee or Kentucky. Like there have been a bunch that have been popping up which is super awesome to see.

15:42 Are you thinking of like running them at more cons or different cons?

15:47 I've I've talked to a couple of people. I haven't really put anything together. It's a little tricky. the needs are like you have to have the right space at the right convention. I don't want to charge people for it. I talked to Origins briefly and they wanted to they wanted to have me pay for a room to do it and so we kind of backed away from that. I talked to talked to somebody about doing it at Breakout Con in but I never actually talk to the convention. So there's there's there been talk about it. One worry is so the reason Tokyo game market works so well is that Japan's a pretty small country and it's very easy to travel within Japan. It's very like flights are super cheap,

16:24 right?

16:25 The US is very big and it's expensive to travel from one part of the country to the other. The cool thing about the game markets and one thing that I I want to encourage is like having new stuff every time. I feel like if you keep bringing the same games to these game markets and people are going to the same conventions and they start seeing the same thing, interest will go down.

16:44 So, it's tricky to like find enough people who are going to have games that are ready frequently enough to support multiple in a year. That's going to be the hard thing. Whereas like having them be at different places regionally and have other people running them, then you're getting more local designers in different places and hopefully getting getting different stuff regularly. So, I have no plans right now to do any more, but I could see it growing in the future for sure.

17:10 I like to see just a larger variety of games is always a good thing because it just helps spark creativity.

17:17 Absolutely. kind of we're kind of at our max vendor amount at Packs Unplugged just for the space that they're allowed to give us

17:26 um or they're willing to give us. So I I wish it could grow larger there, but I'm not We may have to kind of keep it at where we are now. But that doesn't mean that like down the road it could be its own event, right, if it gains enough steam. We'll see. Right now, like I'm really happy to be working with PAX on it.

17:42 Do you think we'll have a big enough like for a Tokyo game market style thing here? That'd be awesome. I I don't know when that would happen, but that'd be super cool. Or where That's the other thing, right? Is like the country's so big that would you have enough people to do it and where would you have it?

18:01 So, I'm not I'm not quite there yet, but but that would be very cool to do one of these days. Just have its own event.

18:07 I have the Tokyo Game Market. Is it in a hotel? Where do they do it?

18:12 It's in a convention center. Oh,

18:13 okay.

18:14 Yeah. So the last couple I guess the last year it's been in Chiba at Makuhari Messa which is just it's just a big convention center. Previous to that it was at Tokyo big site but yeah know it's a big hall but then it's just full of small tables roughly generally rather. Um and it's only two days and the second day a lot of tables get turned into RPG vendors. Oh, interesting.

18:40 Which is really So, I usually only go for the Saturday because I get everything I need and then some people are there both days. Some people are only there on one day or the other, but generally what I'm interested in it's all I can get it all on Saturday.

18:52 And can you get through the whole hall in one day?

18:56 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

18:57 Okay.

18:58 Um I mean you you have to plan. It's that it's not as big as like Essen. You can definitely get through it all if you're not like looking at every single table. But like you get you can they release this catalog that has everything in it and a lot of the stuff's online ahead of time. And so like I basically I come up with a plan and I figure out what I want in advance and you make reservations and then you're just going around and picking them up and paying for them and then you don't really have to worry about anything is going to sell out

19:21 because most people will will set reservations as long as you pick it up by like 2 or 3 p.m. If you're late then they release it and then anybody can buy it. So, a lot of the stress is off because you can make reservations and just pick up your reservations and then it's just going table to table and and picking up what you need to pick up.

19:38 That's

19:39 Yeah, that is really cool. I had a whole different like image

19:43 in my mind. Kind of like a a night market in Taipei or in Japan and then all of it's just crowded and it's a little bit dark and everyone's just selling their own games. But now I I I have a better picture of it.

19:56 Yeah. Yeah. No, it's just in a big convention center and it's just rows of tables. Really more like a flea market than anything else. They release info on their game on Twitter like in the month or two before and with a reservation link. So, I go in knowing exactly what I'm getting and then there's always some surprises. I would like to look for stuff that I didn't see.

20:13 But yeah, like 80 85% of what I pick up is is all pre-reserved.

20:17 Okay, that's that's a good tip. That's good to know.

20:20 Yeah.

20:20 Yeah.

20:20 Yeah.

20:21 Thank you. Now, for our five games list right now, we're going to do five trick takers that stood out to us.

20:30 Um, I think both me and Daniel do not like to really do like a top five really ranking them.

20:36 So, mine are not in any specific order,

20:40 same,

20:40 which is what I usually do.

20:42 And I've got a range of stuff from this last year and then some a couple games from years and years ago. So, it's just a really looking at my shelf and I'm like, "Oh, these are these are cool ones that I've been into lately."

20:54 Yeah, these are the first five that came to mind. I'm not doing any ladder climbing shetty games. Sometimes I lump them, but they're not the same.

21:03 They are not the same, but I I did decide to have a couple of those sneak in because I've been into some of the weirder ones lately. So,

21:11 that's fine.

21:12 Uh yeah, it is a mix for me.

21:14 Yeah. And the great thing is that trick taking really is having a boom right now. There was a couple of board games that actually had trick taking as a mechanism in the board game.

21:25 I got to play them. They're really not my cup of tea right now. So, they're not on my list. My games are all just card games, trick- taking card games, but I I'm happy to see them, you know. I'm happy to see in different ways. Yeah.

21:38 Permeating in Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very cool. But I agree those those tend not to be uh for me either. But it is still cool to see it.

21:46 For those of you who don't know, the classic trick taking game is bridge or spades or hearts. And then I do believe like for me my baseline for modern trick taking games is skull king which adds betting on how many tricks you're going to win to get points and different powers of the cards. So for me that would be my baseline. They also made a dice version of Skull King that's called mythical dice in the US. So, just to let you know that that is my baseline of what I play. Just want you to know that New Mill Industries sells a lot of direct taking games and I have not put any of them on my list on purpose.

22:28 Okay,

22:30 just so I don't do any favoritism, but still free to talk about it at the end. I do have a couple of honorable mentions, but when we go through and talk about where you can find them or at the end of this list, feel free to pop in any of your favorite ones from your own line because there's so many of them. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, I I realized I only have like maybe five of your games. Oh, I need to just get more of them and really get those plays."

22:57 Uh, yeah. No, I I put out I think 16 games just last year,

23:02 which was

23:04 bananas. That's awesome.

23:05 And I currently have 20 games in stock. 20 different titles in stock. So yeah, there's definitely if you like trick taking uh I've got lots of weird stuff for you. Uh I also did not include any New Mill games on my list. Although I will mention a couple of my favorites that I've I've uh I've published.

23:23 Yes, please do.

23:24 Because what's funny is like a lot of the ones from Japan that I published, it's because I could not get a copy of it because it's like super out of out of print. So, the the way to get a copy of it was just to make my own uh and get the rights to publish it. There are some that I'm are some of my favorites. Like,

23:40 there's so many good games from like Japan, Korea.

23:43 Oh, yeah.

23:44 Taiwan, especially though, Japan because there are so many like small indie game designers that only do a hundred and then don't re remake the games. And then it just so happens if someone comes across a Cardboard East video or someone like you that goes and sees it and can, you know, bring it and get the rights and publish it. Otherwise, they're just lost to, you know, the only theund people that actually got it. And it's kind of sad because I know there's so many great ones and just so limited copies.

24:15 Totally. there. And so most of the games on my list, actually all the games on my list were games that I picked up in Japan, typically from Tokyo Game Market or games that that debuted at Tokyo Game Market. So I'm excited to share some of those that people might

24:27 because most of my list is ones that I've gotten in the US that people have over. So

24:32 we'll have some so that you can find hopefully find them in different areas. Do you have a good source of where people can buy the games that are on your list?

24:42 Yeah, I mean there are a couple of websites. I don't know about these specifically, but there are a couple of websites that do what I do, bringing stuff from Japan, but but a little more reliably, and they keep stuff in stock. So, tricky imports.com is out of Portland, Oregon, and he basically brings a lot of imports in from Japan, the Tokyo Game Market stuff. Yeah, it's just tricky imports.com. So, that's that's where I would send folks. Uh, Tanuki Games in I believe in Austin, Texas also brings a lot of stuff over. Trying to think if you're in the UK, travelames.co.uk also does a lot of importing from Japan. There's a few other places, but yeah, there are there are a handful of companies that are doing this, bringing these Japanese games over and selling them. So, they're not all impossible to get. Just kind of depends on what they can get their hands on.

25:28 And also try Amazon.japan.

25:32 Mhm.

25:33 Sometimes you can find them there. The the shipping might be a little bit more expensive, but yeah. I mean, if you really want to get adventurous, there's a website called Booth in Japan,

25:47 which is kind of

25:48 Yep. booth.jp, I think. And so, a lot of the Japanese designers who sell stuff at Tokyo Game Market will then put their games up for sale on booth. And it's kind of like Etsy or eBay

26:00 where it's just people selling directly and they're shipping things out themselves. They go to a warehouse and then there are services. So, it's tricky to get stuff from Japan because a lot of people don't want to send things internationally.

26:13 Yeah.

26:14 Um, so there are like consolidation services that will you can have them buy the game on your behalf

26:20 from a bunch of different people and then they'll all send it to the warehouse and then they will then send the things to you once everything's come together. By b is one of these services that I've used. I have like two or three games I bought this way that I missed at Tokyo Game Market and I'm waiting for this last one to get delivered so I can get everything sent to me. But that that takes a little more leg work. So may not be for everyone. It's not not quite so easy and seamless to do. But there are there are definitely ways to do it without having to fly to Japan.

26:49 I mean, if you do Yeah,

26:52 definitely my favorite way to get them, but there are there are ways to bring them over.

26:56 And Japan's culture is about keeping the best in Japan. So, they don't export a lot of the best stuff. So, if you can go to Japan, always bring an empty suitcase is all I have to say.

27:09 I usually buy an extra suitcase when I'm there. I have my store that I go to every trip to buy my second suitcase.

27:16 Oh, really?

27:17 Oh, yeah. Yeah. I bought the same suitcase like three or four times now. The exact same one. Um because I because I don't want to take an empty one. It's easier just to like and they're not that expensive there. Um, so I'll just buy one now. Now I have a collection of Japanese suitcases. If anybody needs a Japanese suitcase, I'm going to put that up for sale on New Milk.

27:36 I like to put a suitcase inside of a suitcase,

27:40 if that makes sense. And then that's how I do Gen Con or Packs and Plus or

27:45 I just I know I'm going to need two like fullsize suitcases for all the stuff that I get because I bring stuff back to sell, right?

27:52 So like I fill two full two big suitcases coming back.

27:56 Wow.

27:56 Um, which is pretty nuts. Yeah, trying to navigate the Tokyo subway system with like two 60 lb suitcases is super fun.

28:06 Yeah, that is There's Sometimes they don't have elevators that work, so you're lugging up and downstairs or you're not at the right exit.

28:15 Yeah. Yeah, you have to know which exit for sure. Um

28:18 Well, have you tried the service where they take your suitcase from your hotel and directly send it to the airport and then you just

28:25 I've not done that. My a friend of mine does it now and he raves about it and I'm just I'm too cheap. I think I'm just and stubborn. Cheap and stubborn is really what it is.

28:34 Like no, I can do it. I live in New York City. It's fine. So

28:37 for me, I love doing that. That's how I do it. And it's it's a little bit frustrating because you have to wait for the person to come and pick up your suitcase before you can go anywhere. But then it's so easy. You just have to worry about

28:50 Yeah.

28:50 Yeah. No, it makes a lot of sense. I'll probably I'll figure that out one of these days. But I've got my systems now, so why do I change it?

28:57 Yeah, exactly. Well, until you get old and then you're back saying, "No, you can't lug these suitcases up."

29:04 I did. I mean, my last trip I did have I was recovering from a broken foot, which made things a little trickier.

29:09 Yeah.

29:10 And I wound up I think I took a cab

29:12 to the airport just cuz I was like, I don't want to deal with it this time. But usually I'll Yeah. Usually I'll take the trains.

29:17 That makes sense. Yeah.

29:18 Yeah.

29:19 Do you want to go first and talk?

29:21 Sure.

29:22 Your trick taking?

29:23 Yeah. Okay, so the first one on my list cuz I again like I was just looking at my shelf and I'm like which ones do I want to talk about? Which ones if I think Trick Ticking and cool games that I played recently, what jumps out? And one of the first ones was uh Bitcoin

29:38 by a guy nameu. I won't have publishers for any of these cuz typically they're just self-published and they're these are all games from Japan. So, Bitcoin is super cool in that rather than look at your hand and make your bid from the very beginning, you only bid when you win tricks and if you have gone over your previous bid. So, everybody starts out with these cards 1 2 3 57 in front of you.

30:02 Okay?

30:03 And when you win your first trick, you decide how many you want to bid.

30:06 So, at that point, you could push your one card forward or you can go, I think I'm going to take three. I'm going to push my three card forward. You stay at that three bid until you take a fourth trick and then you have to decide, well now, do I am I going to put my one so now I'm at four or do I think I can take two more. So you're able to shift your bid as you go. If you succeed at that hand, let's say I did the three and then I added the one. So I said four and I took four tricks. I get to get rid of that one and that three card. They're gone.

30:34 Okay.

30:35 The goal is to get rid of all of your bid cards

30:38 over the course of three hands. So yeah, having that flexible bidding is super interesting. There's also some cards that if you win with like a six, you actually take the trick you take counts as two, which can really throw off your math of how many tricks you think you're going to win. So super super cool. Shibu has done a bunch of other really interesting games. Peters who sheep dogs, lazy bell boys, some of them are available, some are very not available. Um cuz he's just a guy who runs a grocery store in Naga and comes to Tokyo Game Market and makes these amazing games and then goes back to his grocery store. It's wild. Anyway, um that's Bitcoin.

31:16 Yeah.

31:16 Yeah. I saw it at Spiel, but the theme really turned me off.

31:21 Yeah. I I ignore a lot of the theming because I don't really the trick taking or climbing games. Like for me, it's not about the theme. It's about how the how the simple rules create really interesting emergent play, right? That's what's interesting to me. The theme can be whatever. Sometimes it's cool, sometimes it helps. Most of the time I don't care. So yeah, I think it's about cryptocurrency or something, but whatever. Who cares?

31:45 Yeah. I didn't really look at it, but yeah, that's that sounds really interesting that get rid of your bidding cards.

31:52 Yeah. And if you fail, you just get them back and you so you have another chance to get rid of them. You can also go nil.

31:59 Uhhuh.

32:00 That's interesting because it depends on how many cards are left in your hand. That's how many cards you turn to show you're going nil. But if you fail, you take an extra one card in addition to getting all of your bid cards back.

32:12 Interesting.

32:12 So yeah, also super super super interesting. So yeah, Bitcoin by Shibu.

32:17 Have you ever thought of retheing some of these?

32:20 I mean, a lot of the games that I brought over from Japan to publish, I have rethemed.

32:25 Okay. And we can talk about that when we talk about the new mill stuff. Um, and actually I'll mention one of my games is by a designer whose game I published and rethemed. So I'll talk about it when I get to that one for sure.

32:36 Okay. Awesome. Thank you. So that's Bitcoin B. And I'll put a link into the description for all of the games so you can check them out. For my first game, it's going to be No Loose Ends,

32:50 designed by Taiiki Shinszawa,

32:52 published by Game Head for two to five players. I've recently played this at a five player count. Really enjoyed it at the higher player count. The difference for this trick to King game is that you are bidding with cards from your hand. And the the card that you put out, you need to win the trick with either the same color or the same number as the card that's your bid. And you can bid up to three cards. And if someone bids zero, no one else can bid zero. If you go over or under your bid, you're losing points. If someone bids zero and and not win any tricks, they get like 10 points. It's a very interesting like all the thinking is in that bidding phase where you're like, "Okay, I have the highest card. Do I have another card that I can use to win the trick for that card or do I have enough of that color to win?" And there is a suit that beats all other suits. And so it's like how many of those because you know what's in the in the deck. You know what almost everyone else has. I think all the cards are usually dealt out. So, it's like if they're gonna bid that, then I maybe don't want to bid that. It's just really thinky in the very beginning of it. And it's so interesting. It's not just like bidding a certain number. You have to win with that color or that number. And everyone's gunning for the zero bid person.

34:23 Mhm.

34:24 Because if they don't want to let them have those 10 points.

34:26 No. And if they get their 10 points, all of your over under bids are now negative -2 instead of negative one.

34:34 Mhm.

34:34 It is quite an interesting interesting game. The art's pretty nice. I'm like you where the theme usually doesn't play into my gameplay except for when I'm just like interested in a game, but this one I think definitely plays better at the four or five player count rather than the two to three player count.

34:53 Yeah, for sure. I actually I I had played and I have the um the original version, Shot the Books, which was a Tokyo game market release that was then picked up by Game Head and they did a little development work. I think they they made some changes. Yeah, Shot the Books was great. I'm a big fan of Taiki Shinszawa as a designer and I've met him. I see him now when I when I uh visit Tokyo, which is super cool. I've been to the puzzle store where he works. He's he's an amazing designer. Very inspiring. Yeah,

35:18 that's awesome. That's No Loose Ends from Game Head. Next one I'll talk about was a Tokyo game market release from this last December called Karaoke Trick. It's tricking. Before you start, everybody takes one or two cards depending on player count and puts them in front of them. And those are the only cards they can lead a trick with after they win a trick and they have to go in a specific order. So you have a left and a right and as soon as you win a trick, your left card goes out and then your right one shifts over. Everybody else must follow and everybody else can either follow or they can play a card into their reserve saying that when they win a trick that will be one of the cards they leave with. So you're constantly kind of deciding do I want to play in or do I want to set myself up for later. At the end of the hand the person who wins the most tricks gets one point per trick and everybody else gets one point per card they took. So, ideally, you want to be second most tricks and have a lot of cards from those tricks because then you get one point per card. So, that balancing act of like, well, I've already won two. Uh, I don't Yeah, I don't want to win a third one cuz then I I'll only be getting three points instead of six points or eight points or whatever. Is super interesting. And the designer is Soyama. Plays three to five. Super interesting. And it it's one of those things where you're reading the rules, you're like, I don't see how this is going to be that that wild. and then you're playing it and your brain just goes, "Oh, I see what okay and and trying to get your your footing with it is is really interesting." So yeah, that's karaoke trick by So Young.

36:49 So there's a karaoke trick on BG and it says designer is Argent publisher is poor poor ideology. Is that a different one?

36:57 That is the same game. The translated rules I have say Soyama. So I don't know where where Argent comes from. It is the same uh kanji as what's on the BG page. That is the correct listing. Argent might be their like their handle, like their Twitter handle or something.

37:10 Okay.

37:11 Their BG handle.

37:13 Yeah.

37:13 A lot of folks in in Japan go by pseudonyms.

37:19 And so it's it can be tricky sometimes to get the actual designer's name. Oh, but it looks like they have some other stuff under Argent.

37:26 For my second one, I'm going to talk about Cat in the Box, the deluxe edition. So, Cat in the Box originally was a small box

37:35 of cards, just cards from Japan, and then Vizier picked it up for US distribution and made it into a deluxe edition with pieces and boards and stuff like that. The designer is Muryuki Yokoi.

37:51 Okay, perfect. Thank you. For two to five players. This one really I think was at the early spread of trick taking and because it has a really cute black cat and

38:06 I think it's one of the few trick takers that have no suits at all in the cards

38:12 and you're choosing the suit

38:14 in this little board in front of you and placing the card in that area and that's the suit. So the cards themselves are all black and white and a little bit of color. So, the suit, you actually have these numbers and you're choosing what color to make the card and the suit. And then there's a board where you're placing your pieces on that color and on that suit in the board. So, it's a little bit of area control because you want to connect your pieces to each other orthogonally in order to get the most points. The board also tells everyone what numbers are left for the suit because there can only be one number per suit. It was very interesting and they made a great production out of it. Like it's really beautiful on the table. Really interesting gameplay. You're still betting on how many tricks you can take, but there's no real downside for not meeting your tricks.

39:04 You just don't get the bonus points. And you're trying to focus on not only winning tricks to meet your bet, but also the area control of where your pieces are and where other people can put their pieces to get more points because you get a point per connected piece on the board. Um,

39:22 if you make your bid, right?

39:23 Yeah. When you make your bid. Yeah. It's a really lovely game. I think the theming is really great. The art is beautiful. So, yeah. That's Cat in the Box from Bezier.

39:32 Yeah. Cat in the Box blew my mind the first time I played it. I was obsessed with it. It was one of those early Japanese games that kind of made it over here and I had never seen anything that that did what it did. Yeah, super great pick.

39:43 I love cat in the Box. The next one I will talk about is is a climbing shedding game called Recurring. Uh that has three Rs. R E C U R R I N G. I don't know what it is about this game, but I absolutely love it. The deck is uh 1 one, two, three, etc. up to nine nines depending on the player count. Um, at four players, you don't have any nines. And then there are also a bunch of these R cards, which are essentially um the weakest card. On your turn, you're you're playing a card. The strength of it, nines are the weakest and one is the strongest. So, you can either play the same number of cards, but stronger, so a lower number, or you can play one more than the number of cards that's out of any value. So, if there's a single two, you can either play a one or any pair, right? And you can only play sets. When you play cards, you take the cards that were played before and you put them in your hand.

40:39 And if it goes all the way around after you've played and nobody plays over it, you get to score those cards. Put those cards in your score pile. At the end of the hand, once somebody has shed out, everybody scores one point per card that they were able to score earlier, unless it's an R card. R cards are worth zero, unless you were the first person to shut out, in which case they're worth a point a piece. So, if you're familiar with games like Scout or um Delt Carrier Art, it's definitely like along those lines. It's just a super fun uh kind of thinky um shedding climbing shedding game or Linko if you know Linko or Abluxen. It has some vibes of that as well. This was one that I found a copy of on my last trip um for actual reasonable price. Normally, I was seeing it for like 8,000 yen, which is

41:26 Wow.

41:28 probably about 60 bucks, which was like more than I wanted to spend. and I found it for like 3,000 yen and I was super excited. So that's recurring and the designer's name is Cyan.

41:37 So is is Cyan a team? I know it's the publisher as well.

41:41 Yeah, it's hard to know with some of these, right? It could just be one person. It could be a design circle where it's like two or three people who design games under the same name.

41:50 I don't know in this case whether it's just a single person or not because it just doesn't say in the game itself.

41:56 That's very interesting though. For my next one, it is Moo and More that

42:02 is published by various different publishers because there's various different editions.

42:08 The one I got was the H Highlebar games through CGE edition. The designer is Doris Matus and Frank Neestto for two to six players. And I think it really does play well at most player counts. What I really enjoy about it, and that's why I like it at a little bit of higher player count, is that you're playing kind of on teams. The start player will put out what they want to be a trump, either a number or a suit, and then the next player decides what they want to put out, but then the next player is like, "Oh, what which team?" It's like it's really cool how you bet to see who's going to be the start player and then the following player has to be in a different team and you're always changing teams up and it's semi-ooperative because you are playing on teams but in the end whoever has the most points wins. It's a really interesting way to do it and I love the team aspect of it even though you're switching teams from round to round. I absolutely love the team aspect of trick taking. I've never played bridge though, so I don't know how that would work, but it was one of the first that I actually got to play where you are on teams and it plays well at three, too, because

43:20 there's two against one, right?

43:22 Mhm.

43:22 So, it works well. It's very interesting on how it plays. As soon as I taught people, they're like, "Oh, we need to pick it up." Because it was smooth, interesting, different than a lot of other trick takers because you're choosing the suits in the very beginning that are your trump suits or trump numbers and some of the cards I do believe are on the table face up and some of them are in your hand. So, you have different information. It's a really interesting game and if you find a copy, definitely try it. I really like it though.

43:52 Yeah, Mu is a fascinating game. I've played it a few times. usually at uh five players cuz then it's you wind up like a threeon two situation which is really interesting. It does have some like DNA of some older German traditional games like Kona Griffin or Doppelov that has that kind of variable partnership like from one hand to the next who your partner is can change but then there's an ultimate winner which is really interesting. I have some issues with those games sometimes because you can wind up with somebody who just kind of runs away with the game because they're always on the winning team and then you can never you don't want to be on their team because you're just helping them win if you're falling behind. Um so that can be a a rough dynamic sometimes but um yeah. No, super interesting. Have you played any of the other games in that box? Cuz the more in the Mu and more there's I think there's like four games that come in that box, right?

44:41 Really?

44:42 Yeah. Yeah. Moo is just one. That's what the more the more is. There's like rules for like

44:47 three or four games in that in Moo and More. Yeah, there have been a few different editions of those and some of them come with different games than others. Um depending on the release. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

44:57 I think I'll have to go back and look because we've because I always teach new players. So, we always start with the basic game. So, I'll have to go and see what other games there is. And

45:06 yeah, they're totally like just have nothing to do with Moo. They're just they use the same cards or some subset of the same cards. Yeah. Yeah. There's a compendium of games in there. Yeah, go look.

45:16 There's three or four games and they're also they're supposed to be really good, too. Ashit, I think, is one that was in the Moon and War box. There are like three or four games in there.

45:23 So, definitely Yeah, explore explore the

45:25 Yeah, definitely. I do like it when especially for card games when there's multiple games in it for you to play. But, man, I think that just went over my head that it was there was multiple games. So, I'm so glad you told me.

45:37 Do you know about Zoo and more that Taylor Riner Taylor Rainer did? Well, I I love like what was his first game that he did with Bezier? It was catalog. Sears catalog, right?

45:48 Sears catalog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which was originally of what's left, I think. So, he did Zoo and More, which is also a box of four different games and different decks of cards from a few different designers. So,

45:58 Oh, that's kind of his homage to Moo and More, I think.

46:01 Yeah. Oh, that's funny. I do want to check it out because I do love the Zoo theme.

46:08 Uh I think he's I'm not sure. He he ran a Kickstarter for it. There might still be available. Um I'm sure you could reach out to him and he'll hook you up.

46:16 Yeah, Sears Catalogs is also a good one. Uh trick taking game. It's not on my list right now, but yeah, that that's another one that you should check out for sure.

46:24 Uh my next one I'm going to talk about is Sumita River. Another Japanese design um from a handful of years ago, 3 four years ago maybe by Masha Kamaru. And he is someone who just who publishes his own stuff. This is one that I really wanted to do a version of and he's not letting me publish it. Even though I did publish a version of his game Idos, which I rethemed as and renamed as Worst in Show, which is about a dog show where the dogs are strategically misbehaving. That is that is still available from New Mil Industries and Beth Soil did the art for that. But Sama River is the one I'm talking about. It is another climbing shedding game, but it's unusual in that there are only different different meld types that you're able to shed at one time. And as soon as somebody has shed to that type, you can't play that same combination type until it gets reset.

47:12 And there's only two colors, black and red. Black single, red single, and then a black pair or a twocard run of red. Three card run of black, three of a kind of red, four of a kind of black, four card run. So, you have these laid out and you can only play to those, but you have to escalate the card strengths. A couple of them have kind of special powers. There's also a thing in it where before the game starts, you look at your hand and you decide whether you're happy with your hand or not. And if you're not, you can trade your hand with somebody else by adding a wild card to it.

47:44 So, there's these rounds of card of of hand trades until everybody's happy. And then you may or may not have wild cards in there, which is super interesting. And then you're just yeah, you're playing a a card shedding climbing shedding game. I'm not a big climbing shedding fan in general, but I really like the ones that do weird stuff like this. This is probably my absolute favorite. And he's also a designer who like I've gotten to know over the last couple years. Has become a bit of a friend. Um, which has been really cool. We always hang out with him and play games after Tokyo Game Market, which has been really fun.

48:14 I love that.

48:15 That's Yeah. Sama River, Mashikamaru.

48:18 I do like ladder climbing shedding games. So, now that you have two on your list, you're gonna have to replace them with two from New Mills and talk about two of your games.

48:28 I will. Okay, I will.

48:30 Yeah. And for everyone that's not a trick taker, you're going to have to talk about

48:33 Those are the only two. Those are the only two. So, when we're done, I'll do two new mill trick taking games that are two of my favorites.

48:39 Awesome. Perfect. Mine number four is going to be a one that I just learned and played recently. Very interesting. I've never played any other trick takers that are similar. You can tell me if there's another one, but it's mystery tricks designed by John Baron, published by Baron John games for three to five players.

48:59 If you look at the box, you automatically think Scooby-Doo, and it is a mystery trick taking games. The art is by Raknar Tessier, I do believe. But oh my gosh, it's very interesting because everyone deals their card of hands, then you look and you order at order them, and then you place them fit face down to the person on your left. That person just plays it out so that one side is the lowest and one side is the highest. And everyone knows what suit they have in their hand and they know what side is lowest and what side's highest. So, it's kind of like Zylotar in that way.

49:37 Yeah, I was gonna say Magic Trick, which was which the game that Zylotar became.

49:41 Yeah, exactly. But you're playing blind.

49:46 You don't know what number you're playing. You're just playing based on the suit or where it is in your tableau. And then at the end of the game, everyone should have one of each of the different suits, but you don't know what that number is. and you

50:03 need to say exactly what that card is to win the game. It's a completely cooperative trick taking game and there's a whole bunch of cards in the middle of the table. So when you win a trick, you get to look at one of those cards. So you have to kind of remember what you gave the next person and then you have to remember what is on the on the table. So, it's a very heavy memory aspect to this and it's so interesting because you are trying to find out like who did it, who was the monster, where it was, you know, all those things by remembering what you've seen. Certain people have to win more tricks to see more of the cards if it we always have like different ways to learn. Like we were talking about it before and after. Before we're like, "Okay, you have more of that suit, so you should remember what that what's on the table for that suit, and then I have more of that suit." But then at the end of the game, we're like, "Oh, we should have remembered what other people what the cards we gave to the person on the left was in a way so that we kind of know what the one card maybe that they did not flip over. If you have a lot of that one card, then we can be like, wait, the person that passed along that card should look at that suit instead of the person that has the cards so that they could kind of remember one suit only and

51:26 what cards are in there. It's very interesting. I am terrible at memoring games and so this is very like do I like it or not? Because I love the trick taking. It's very interesting. It's a faceown trick taking game, but the memory aspect was like, "No,

51:45 what have we done?" type of thing. And the the art is great. The like the theme is, you know, a little hokey, but very cute. So, I was It's definitely one that you have to have the right group to play with that enjoy trick taking and memory games at the same time. But this is one that was like really unique to me.

52:05 Yeah, that sounds super interesting. Yeah, you mentioned Xylotar or Magic Trick, which which has a similar vibe. Um, there's a Japanese game called Malumier, which is a tiny tiny box, but it it does the similar thing with the suits on the back,

52:21 but they have icons for the suits, and the relative size of the icon will tell you whether they're high or low. So, rather than having somebody sort them,

52:30 you have them in front of you, and you can just you have to kind of guess by like how big that teardrop is. Some of them are very difficult to discern. So that that also does that kind of face down thing. Also reminds me of uh lose or um there are a couple other games where the you can only see the backs of your cards, but you can see everybody else's cards.

52:48 Mhm.

52:49 So you're kind of the deduction element there. So there are a few games that play around with that, but

52:53 I don't know of any that are cooperative like that.

52:56 Interesting. Yeah. The cooperative with the deduction of like what's left, which Yeah, that's completely memory.

53:02 I don't know how I feel about that. It's definitely It's going to push people off because memory is one of those things that you either like either

53:10 works for you or it doesn't.

53:11 Yeah. Exactly. And I'm sure even if you play with someone with perfect memory, everybody else is not going to have perfect memory. So, it's going to be very interesting.

53:20 And when you look at the cards in the center, you can't show anyone. Like, you can't help each other.

53:26 Yeah. You can't just say what it is. Yeah. Interesting.

53:30 We wanted to. We were like, it's a cooperative game. We should be able to be like It's definitely not that because I saw that, but

53:37 in the rules it says you can't talk. So,

53:40 yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it kind of breaks the game if you could just tell everybody.

53:44 I know. It' be a little bit too easy, right?

53:46 Yeah. That but that I got the all of the games from John in his last batch. I just have not got I I'm drowning in uh trick taking games that I haven't played yet.

53:55 That was Mystery Tricks by Baron John. So, what is your last game?

54:00 All right. So, my last one is I'm the CEO, which is the recent Japanese edition of a game called Sluff Off, which is the Eagle Griffin edition of a game called Decele, which I think was the original German edition. It was also released as Wizard Extreme. But the edition that I'm specifically talking about is I'm the CEO. I like the art the best of all of them from Suki Games, designed by Stephendora, so the only German designer on my list of five, the rest being Japanese. But I bought this at Tokyo Game Market, so it counts as a Japanese game. Very interesting game. You have five suits and then 1 through 15 at the maximum player count, but that gets adjusted down if you have playing with fewer. Uh, it plays three to five and it's really good at at five players.

54:46 you are looking at your hand and guessing how many of each suit you think you're going to win tricks in and you take tokens for those. So, if I have the yellow 15 and the green 14 and 15, then maybe I'll take two green tokens and a yellow one. Okay? And my goal is to get rid of those tokens over the course of the game and not take any other tricks. If I get rid of those tokens and I don't take any other tricks, I get zero points and that's great. If I fail to get rid of any of my tokens, I lose two points per. And if I take any tricks that I didn't anticipate, I lose three points for each one. Um, so you're trying to like really exactly bid. Similar to shut the books or no loose ends, you want to bid exactly what you think you're going to take. It's a riot. I love this game. It can be very difficult. Oh, the other wrinkle is uh one player can choose to be a sabotur. Uh, I don't remember what the what the name of it is and I'm the CEO. It's probably something different.

55:39 probably the CEO where you are betting that other people are going to mess up. So you have these four tokens that if you don't get rid of them are worth a point a piece if you can give them to other people when they or rather when other people mess up and take tricks they didn't mean to you give them one of your tokens. So that's fewer points that you are going to get negative points and they get to take them instead. But otherwise you're allowed to take whatever tricks you want but really you want other people to be taking stuff that they don't want. I love this game. I I played it recently. I taught it to some friends and it went over really well. And it's one that I play online with a group that I mentioned before kind of on on our Sunday gettogethers. But yeah, super fun. It can be very brutal, but always a good time. And that's Stefan Dora. And this edition again is called I'm the CEO, published by Suki Games.

56:28 Feel trick- taking games can be brutal at times.

56:31 Oh yeah. I used to hate mean games. Like I did not want to play mean games, but I do not mind. I think with trick taking like nobody's ever being targeted,

56:41 right? It's just the spirit of a game is you're going after what you need and and you're making sure other people fail and that's just the game and they're often over very quickly and you move on to the next and there's no hurt feelings.

56:51 Yeah.

56:51 So yeah, I don't mind meanness in in trick- taking games really.

56:55 Yeah, I have to say the same. Like I don't mind meanness in quick games.

56:59 Yeah.

56:59 And most card games are quick games like trick taking games, but I don't like it when it's area control meanness.

57:06 Right. Yeah,

57:06 it's very easy to feel like you're being picked on or targeted and that that doesn't feel great

57:12 and those tend to go on for way too long

57:16 for me personally. Not not my style.

57:18 For my last game before the honorable mentions, it is the Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring tricktaking game from Brian Giller published it by office dog games for one to four players. It's based off the crew. I think that is the original cooperative tricktaking game that I've seen. Well, the one that first one that I saw, right?

57:39 It's the first one that really blew up. Yeah, there were a couple that came out before that didn't get the attention, but The Crew definitely

57:46 broke that wide open. But yeah, go ahead.

57:48 Yeah, and I do love The Crew and the second one as well. I think that's also one that is campaign game. So, I really enjoyed that and I've been really enjoying the series, the Lord of the Rings trick taking game series.

58:03 The two are Towers just came out. I only played a little bit of it. I really want to play more of it. And also, this is one of those games that actually plays pretty well solo

58:13 and I like the the way that they did the solo where you don't see all the cars that are going to come out, but you're only going to see certain ones for each of the different hands. then you're kind of playing multiplayer solo, but you're not seeing all the cards that are in the deck.

58:29 It's fun. It's a nice puzzle to play solo, but it's really nice puzzle to play cooperative with other people. The characters and the storyline follows the books pretty well, the Lord of the Rings books. So, I had to give this one a shout out. It's pretty It's the most thematic trick taker that I know of that really brings the theme into the game. But, I really enjoyed this one.

58:52 Yeah. And also um Taylor again mentioning Taylor uh he did development on these games. He did a lot of work and he brought a lot of knowledge from like the Japanese games that he's played and there's like if if you played a lot of these Japanese games you see some DNA sprinkled in with some of these chapters which has been really fun. I helped play test a little bit with um Fellowship and and Two Towers. So that's that was really fun. I just started playing it with my wife this weekend. Uh two player.

59:19 So yeah, Fellowship of the Rings is really good. Mhm.

59:22 Great pick.

59:24 That is the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring trick taking game is a full title from Office Dog Games. So now you have your new mill games that you got to talk about now.

59:37 I owe you two. Okay.

59:39 Yeah.

59:41 And they got to be trick- taking games. I've done both trick taking and climbing shedding.

59:45 Mhm. One of my most recent that I published this last fall is called Vegetarers. Originally, it was Makai Fooda. Um, and that was from Tokyo Game Market maybe two or three years ago. I I forget now. It's really interesting in that it's must not follow and you are betting on what suit you think is going to win the most times. So, it's not how many tricks you're going to take, but how many what suit you think is going to win the most.

1:00:12 Okay.

1:00:13 Which is really interesting. And the the deck makeup is really weird. It's not a standard deck at all. There's four suits, but one of them has two nines, three sixes, and two threes, and another has four fours and two sevens. It's very weird. And then there's kind of a an internal ranking in if there are ties with the different suits. It was one of my one of my favorite games from Tokyo Game Market from a couple years ago, and it was one I was able to talk to the designer and get them to let me publish it. And so, it was really exciting to be able to put it out. And that's one that's that's still available for purchase because that was just from the October pre-order. So, it it fulfilled this in December. And then another one I'll mention, I'm I want to make sure I say ones that are still in print because I don't want to direct you to games that you can't even get for me anymore. So, Tesma Trick is another Japanese one.

1:01:00 I'll just stay on theme. Um was originally released as Tesma Master, I think 10 or 15 years ago. And it's one where you do a lot of drafting at the beginning. So, you're choosing your bid scheme. I did some development to simplify these bids, but let's say there'll be four cards out and one of them is I'm going to take four tricks, but if I take three or five, I'll still get points. I'll just get less points. Or I'm going to take zero or I'm going to take, you know, whatever, two, but if I get three or four, I'll get fewer points. So, you're choosing your bid, you're choosing a special power, and you're choosing a pain suit. So, if you played like stick or stick them, if you take cards of that suit, then you you lose points. So you're doing all that before you start and then you play a trick taking and then you know you evaluate how you did. It's also the theme is a traditional Japanese magic style which is I think only practiced by like two or three people at this point.

1:01:51 Like it's become this thing that that not many people even in Japan know that much about.

1:01:55 So I worked with the designer and made sure that we're being really respectful to the theme and his original vision. So that was yeah that was super cool. That's Tesma trick. It was actually it was it was a grill game for a lot of folks. Even in Japan, I had people come up and ask me when I was publishing it cuz they knew that I was going to do it. When is it coming? When is it coming? So that that was very cool to put that one back out there after having been out of print for so long and and really hard to get.

1:02:17 I'll definitely have to check it out. What criteria do you reprint games from your own catalog? And which ones do you just like let go and stop printing?

1:02:28 I pretty much don't do reprints.

1:02:31 Okay. My interest is getting more stuff out there for folks who want it and less about keeping things in stock and I don't I don't I'm not interested in finding evergreens. I'm interested in finding more new weird stuff

1:02:44 to make available. Right. I have done some reprinting of my own games if I felt like there was demand. I did do a small reprint of the Six of Eight because I took pre-orders. I thought I knew how many I needed and they just kept pre-ordering to the point where like by the time they shipped to me, I was almost out of stock. So, we just did another quick 100 run.

1:03:04 Um, and then those sold out. Uh, and then that got picked up by 25th Century and was just on Kickstarter, the Six of Eight. So, big shout out to Carol Lro, um, and her success with that game.

1:03:13 Uh, super super good game.

1:03:15 Uh, but I don't sell it anymore, so I'm not going to tell you to buy it. No, that's not true. Absolutely buy six of eight. It's amazing. And I was glad to kind of get it the attention of somebody who was able to do a bigger print run because that's really the goal with Numeill for me has always been let's get these weird things out there that people aren't taking chances on and hopefully get enough attention that somebody another bigger publisher who can do a larger run will get see it see there's interest and then give it the big production it deserves. So seeing that happen with Six of Eight with Torch Lit which I did as a little dog release um Spring Cleaning which became Haunted Mouse from Bezier. Yes,

1:03:51 these are all for me exactly what I was hoping would happen with with New Mill where I'm like I'm bringing a game out and it's getting picked up and giving a broader release, which is awesome. Um, but yeah, I don't I don't my interest is not in having games in my stable that I'm constantly selling. Um,

1:04:08 I'm more I'm more interested in like getting more new stuff out there.

1:04:11 It's wonderful though. I have two honorable mentions as well. You were saying how like Bezier is bringing spring cleaning as

1:04:19 Mhm. Was it Haunted Mouse? Right. I love spring cleaning. I've been playing on BGA, so I'm very glad that they're bringing it as

1:04:26 Haunted Mouse.

1:04:27 Yeah. Yeah.

1:04:30 But one of my honorable mentions has to be Rebel Princess.

1:04:36 Mhm.

1:04:36 From Daniel Burn, Jose Gerald Guerrero, and Kevin Haz. There's four of them. Veros. Is that correct? probably

1:04:51 but bezi is bringing it. Rebel princess is for three to six players and basically they have done a variant on hearts. So if you look on the skulls on the art of the box they have hearts in their eyes because it's a variant of hearts where everyone now has a special power and then you're trying to not win princes because princes are points or negative points whichever way you want to look at it. And there's even the frog prince, which is an animal suit, but it gives you five points or negative points, which is horrible. Or you can go all out and try to get all the princes, including the frog prints, which is really fun. And then their next game that they're coming out is Zombie Princess, which is a spades variant. So, I wanted to shout that out because those are really fun. And then my other one is uh I'm sorry, but it's not published yet. It is going to be on Kickstarter in July of 2026. It is Rasly Rabbits from designer Tate Woo, published by Sunrise Tornado for two to six players. The unique thing about Rascally Rabbits, and I play tested it a couple times, is that instead of a hand of cards, you have one card that's a grid, and then the top and side of the grid is your suits. And then in the middle of the grid is your numbers, right? And then this setup is you're going to draw a line so that some of the numbers has two possible suits that you can choose from and some of them only have one possible suit and

1:06:22 you're going to be marking off random two numbers as well. And some suits and then the Trump suit is always random as well. You're going to flip a card and then that's going to tell you what the Trump suit is. And you're still going to do your bidding for how many tricks you're going to win. Um, and some tricks will give you rabbits that's going to give you more points and stuff. It's very interesting the way that he's done it. And I really enjoy it in a lot of different player accounts. So, I'm very excited to see it get published. And it's it's really interesting because usually you don't get to choose what suit the number is, but this one you get to choose between two suits some of the times and you want to follow exactly the same card number and suit as previous player because that's how you get your rabbits. But at the same time, sometimes you want to be the winner so that you can meet your bids as well. So, it's it's a very interesting twist on trick taking that I I was like, "Wow, Tat's brain is a little bit

1:07:25 Yeah,

1:07:26 just amazing in that way."

1:07:28 I am very excited for more people to check it out and play it. So, that's Rasly Rabbits, but that one's coming to Kickstarter. So, that's my little

1:07:37 sneak peek

1:07:38 outside of the line of the games.

1:07:40 Yeah. Awesome. I mean, I have like a billion other games I could talk about. You would have to stop me. But yeah, there's so many games

1:07:46 the series.

1:07:47 Seriously. Yeah, I could go on for hours. Every time I go to Tokyo, I come back with like 40 or 50 games. It's just like I can't play all these. Usually the cream uh rises to the top and the ones I have left from a couple years ago are maybe not so great because that's the other thing about Tokyo game market is you don't know anything about these games before you buy them.

1:08:05 Yeah.

1:08:06 There no previews, right? Like so you're buying on either because you know the designer and they're generally you really like their stuff or the art is appealing or something about the description sounds interesting but it's it's kind of a crapshoot. You just don't know. They're not all winners. But for me that's part of the fun of going is the discovery. They're like, "Oh, this one actually is very cool and I had no idea." Um

1:08:30 and like it's worth a few stinkers to have that experience, I think.

1:08:34 Yeah. And also they're usually not that expensive because they're smaller box games and or card games.

1:08:39 You're talking like 1012 dollars to take a risk like I'm willing to do that. So

1:08:43 yeah, absolutely. So now we've come to our moment of positivity. We're going to talk about or celebrate something big or something small that's happening in our lives. If you don't mind, I'm going to go first.

1:08:56 Uh so my moment is that Ma Jang is coming back for a younger generation. I know a few people who've been talking about ma jang recently. It's pretty wild.

1:09:05 Yeah, it's incredible. I love it. I've always loved it as a kid. I've always played it, but I've never went heavy into the gambling. It was always like quarters or dimes, you know, maybe five bucks max, one of those types of things. And there's a lot of people that have a problem. It is like poker where it can be fully gamble. There's people that need to not do it. They lose their homes. It's really sad. But I like how this resurgence of ma jang and there's a lot of different communities, different groups, different leagues that happen now, especially in America and in the west that are teaching the younger generation ma jang. In Southern California, we're having popups in boba tea shops in bars where there's like 10, 15 tables of ma jang. People are bringing their own tables. They're teaching and I just recently went to a friend's house and we had two tables and we were teaching our friends how to play it. It's basically Jin Rummy with these tiles that are very very tactile and at the same time as playing and teaching ma jang we're teaching them Chinese because you kind of have to know your one through nine kanji you know that type of thing the characters and I'm like teaching them pronunciation and there's things that you have to yell out when you want to you know grab tiles from other people but it's it's so much fun.

1:10:27 It's such a part of my childhood. I love it, but you have to have three to four players. I don't really play at three players. It's definitely best at four players, but that's really been making me happy is to play more ma jang and just play it basic. You win or you lose, right? And then once people get into it, then they can talk about the different scoring systems and the different ways to play. There's probably over a hundred different ways to play. But I usually play either Hong Kong style or Taiwan style. But I know in the Philippines there's like

1:11:00 10 20 different ways to play just depending on where you live and your own family rules. There's different ways to score. There's books on how to score ma jang as well. But just even playing the basic gin rummy and just playing for winning is still a lot of fun. Now there are apps on your phone that say it's ma jang but it's not ma jang. It's not the jin ramy ma jang. It's just matching. Yeah.

1:11:25 Yeah. Maong solitaire which is just matching. It's not that. Okay. So, it has to be like a Jin Ramy style that I really love. But it's been making me really happy that it's coming back a lot more younger people are playing it. And I feel you can play it with a master and older people and it connects those two generations a little bit and you get to see how really serious they are. There's tables that will wash the tiles and set it up for you. So, it's one of those things that is so culturally significant in Chinese culture, especially in Taipei, that I'm really happy that it's spreading and it's uh getting a resurgence and people are making lighter versions of the tile. So, it's more easily, you know, packed up and traveled with, but there's wooden versions, there's 3D printed versions, there's card versions as well, but I really love the tactile.

1:12:17 I've seen Maong card decks for sure. Yeah,

1:12:20 I have a friend who's been talking about Riichi Ma Jong. He like really wants to play Reichi Maong. So, I guess that's been floating around. I even had a couple of submissions for the last Indie Games Night Market that were like Ma Jong based Maong variants or something. I didn't know enough about what was going on

1:12:35 and I had other things that I wanted to let in. But yeah, Maong has definitely been percolating over the last year. Like I keep seeing it more and more. So that's yeah, that's really cool. So I um my last trip to Japan because everything has to go back to Japan, right? My son asked if I could find a a 3DS in the used video game store and I found one and then I had to bring it back and basically hack it to make it run English cuz it was only it was Japanese language and region locked and I sat there for 2 or 3 hours. I figured out how to do it and and uh now I have his old 2DS and he has a 3DS and we've been playing Pokémon games together. He's 16 and this 2DS he had when he was little and we gave it to his cousin and then we got it back.

1:13:21 We've been playing first it was Pokemon Sun and Moon

1:13:25 so that we could trade the exclusive characters back and forth and now we're playing Pokemon X and Y and I have Omega Ruby and uh Alpha Sapphire coming next week. We've been playing Pokemon and trading and talking about Pokemon and my wife is super alienated cuz she's not playing Pokemon and we won't shut up about it. But it's been this great shared thing with him with, you know, he's a 16-year-old. We have to work really hard to find things that we can both enjoy at this point.

1:13:50 Yeah, absolutely.

1:13:51 But that's been that's been really kind of delightful. And of course, because I'm me, I made spreadsheets so I can track which Pokémon I have and when they evolve and which ones I need and which ones I don't have because I don't know how to make things not into a spreadsheet. So, I've been I've been spending a lot of time playing Pokemon and uh managing my Pokemon and and trading with my son, and that's been uh really fun last few weeks.

1:14:14 I love that. So, where can everyone find you and your games uh and buy your games or follow you?

1:14:21 Yes, please buy my games. Newmillindustries.com is the website. Um and it just takes you right to the store. Uh and I think we have we currently have 20 trick taking and climbing shedding games available. Um, and they're all amazing and you should buy them all. And then you can find me on Blue Sky, uh, DNL NWM. That's just my name without vowels, where I post about mostly going to the movies and, you know, occasionally game stuff.

1:14:51 And if you're interested in in what's coming from New Mill, there's a link on the the store page up at the top uh, for contact. that'll send you to a um a form where you can sign up for our mailing list. And I really only send stuff out like once or twice a month and it's typically like announcements on new games that are coming cuz I do everything via pre-order. I don't do Kickstarters or anything like that. So that's the best way to find out about new games coming out. Just sign up for the men.

1:15:17 And I want to say thank you so much for spending your time to join.

1:15:20 Oh no, this has been great.

1:15:21 It it's been lovely talking. I want to talk trick taking all day.

1:15:25 Hey, I'm always off. Usually we'll get to play together, you know.

1:15:29 Yeah, for sure. For sure. No, this has been super fun. Thanks again for having me on.

1:15:33 You're very welcome. You've been listening to the Boardgame podcast produced and edited by Amanda Wong. Be sure to visit us at the web at boardgamegeeek.com. You can also find us on YouTube, xblsky, Instagram, Facebook, and Tik Tok under boardamegeeek and Twitch under boardamegeeek TV. You can reach us via email via podcastamegeek.com.