Broken Meeple Podcast 141 - Where's the Excitement Gone?

0:27 Today we're going to broadcast 141 recorded 30th of August 26. Are we finally out of the summer? Probably not. I mean September is technically summer now because every season has kind of shifted forward by a day. But yeah, I am so glad that temperature has finally started to behave itself. I mean over the next 15 days on the long-term forecast, it's you know 20, 21, 22, 21, 22, 22, 22, 21. You know, it's basically low 20s with actual cloud, with actual rain. You know, it's we're finally back to some kind of normality for the summer and I just hope that September does not try to throw some weird spin into the works where it basically says, "Oh, you know what? We could have a 30-degree heatwave in the middle of September out of nowhere." It's like, it better not.

1:15 Yeah, I'm just looking forward to the temperatures getting much lower. I mean I can't wait for autumn to officially start where we get you know browns and greens and yellows mixed around with all the colors and also the temperatures to drop below 20 so that it's actually at a point where I go, "Oh, you know what? I don't need to wear annoying like horrible looking shorts anymore you know to work and stuff." You know I mean, I do not look good in shorts but it's a necessity in order to stay cool and I would like to get back to being able to wear actual trousers again, you know chinos and stuff. And when it gets cold enough to wear my burgundy you know wool jacket again that you've seen me wear. You know, so I do like to get back to a point where I actually feel like I look half decent and not you know, in a thin T-shirt trying not to sweat buckets even in this room right now. I know it's still humid. Um and, you know, wearing shorts where you can basically go, "Oh, there. You look at his shaven legs and uh you know, his fat blubbery legs.

2:10 Yeah, that's a good look for you, isn't it?" And it's like, "No, it's not." And so, I can't wait for that. Uh but yeah, um you know, generally fine. Uh just a health update first. Uh it's been what now? 4 weeks? 2 days time it'll be 4 weeks. Um actually not 2 days. Actually tomorrow. Yeah, this time tomorrow it will be 4 weeks from when I had the surgery uh for appendicitis. Uh I seem to be going all right now. The third week I did get a wound infection. It's common with naval-based um infections, you know, belly button stuff. So, that was kind of annoying. I had to be on antibiotics for a week and it can mess your head up a little bit and stuff, but uh generally um I'm trying to get this camera a little bit more focused on me. There There we go. Um generally I'm fine though. Um it's uh you know, that is past. Uh I've done the week course. I went back in for a checkup and you know, there's a bit of a shall we say, um not to gross people out, a little bit of crusted remains. You know, there's a scab. The wound is scabbing over, but that seems to be fine. There's no further infection. There was no bacteria from the swabs they did, you know, to test um you know, in the hospital. So, uh it seems to be fine. It's now in the healing process. So, I just need to leave it bandage-free and let air and nature take its course, basically. So, this September will be the next step of the healing process, which is that I've got a decent amount of mobility back. I mean, I'm not running, um but I can bend down a bit better than I used to be able to.

3:37 Um it's not painful to get in and out of bed or or sit up and down on chairs. I can do that fine. I can drive. So, I've got my freedom back. And you know, I can go back to I've been back to work the last uh week or two. Last couple of weeks I've been fine. Uh so, yeah, generally generally I'm on the road to recovery. Uh, it just might be a while before I can do heavy lifting or, you know, gym and stuff like that. Although, I can do walking fine. And I should be able to do sit-down exercises fine. So, I don't know. I mean, technically my account is frozen until the end of September and I did say I was going to take it easy, but I don't know. Part of me I'm I don't want to do the gym. No, not properly, but, you know, sit-down exercises, you know, isolated biceps, that kind of thing. As long as I don't stand up while doing it, there's got to be a point when I can do that. I mean, surely I can go back on the treadmill and do like the uphill walk thing. You know, that's 30 minutes of my time. It's a good exercise calorie burner. I feel like something like that's got to be doable soon, surely. But, uh, I'll cross that bridge when this wound is fully healed. So, externally, when I can see the wound's fully healed, which it probably not be for another couple of weeks yet, you know, but mid-September I certainly for my mental health need to get back into some kind of proper exercise. I do not want to be a fat blubbery mess, or shall we say, I don't want to be more of a fat blubbery mess by the time I get to Essen in like October. So, um, yeah, certainly I do want to heal up in that regard. Hm, it's a little bit dark in here. It's kind of weird. Although, that's probably because the sun's glaring through the window a little bit, but I'm keeping the window open because

5:08 otherwise I will bake. Hence why I've got to my, uh, giant tankard of ice-cold squash. Yep, the same one I got from, uh, Bruges from last cruise. I need to go back to Bruges at some point. I was only there for a cruise stop. I wouldn't mind checking out properly. And I also want to check out that Pairi Daiza Zoo uh, near Brussels or whatever it is. But, man, the prices are insane to stay there if you live there solo. So, it's completely out of my price bracket. I need to find a way to get there, stay somewhere nearby for two nights, shall we say, and then go to the zoo on each day. I'm sure that's feasible with public transport and that, but I need to do some research and actually find out how. But, yeah, that's definitely on my uh list of things to do. Haven't thought about uh next holiday really. I said I was going to do something late September, like go to Vienna or maybe um check out the zoo there, but problem is is that I don't know what state I'll be in physically in late September. Will I be able to do more physical activities?

6:08 Will I be able to actually travel on the plane and do all that sort of stuff, or is that going to be too much too soon? But, if I don't take it then, the next time I'll get a chance to take any holiday will be November and December because I've got so much holiday to use up this year, and I haven't And this is when I I joined my job too late so that I couldn't buy a week of holiday. It's something that we can do in Britain. I'm not sure if that can be done in the States and stuff. And I haven't been able to do that this year, and I still have too much holiday left. I've just been working my ass off all year. So, you know, and having this surgery meant that I couldn't do anything in August. I couldn't do it You know, I haven't been able to do anything early September. So, I'm running out of time to do something. And in November and December, well, what do I do? Um I guess I could maybe go back up to Scandinavia somewhere, you know, go somewhere nice and cold, you know, icy stuff, but will there be a cheap Arctic cruise to do again? I don't know. Uh doubtful by myself, you know, solo supplement and everything. Or do I just pick somewhere in the south of Europe, you know, and just say, "You know what? Normally, Italy and all these places would be too hot. At least in November, it'll be nice and cool." I don't know. Well, you know, I have to think about it. But, yeah, health-wise, I'm doing good. So, thanks for the support, but I think I'm on the I'm on You know, if we're going to call stage one the lack of mobility phase, and we're going to call stage two the infection phase, then I'm now on stage three, which is the let nature run its course phase, you know. And this is the extended period between week week four and shall we say week six to eight, when

7:40 I still need to limit my physical activity, but generally I'm doing normal day-to-day business fine. And then stage four will be the progression back into physical activity, being able to do the gym again, that kind of thing as externally I should have healed and it's just a case of internal wounding. So, yeah. Anyway, thanks a lot for that. Uh the channel itself, the channel the we've got uh yeah, some a few videos I've managed to do since uh my been recovering from the uh surgery. So, uh 28,081 subs. So, thanks everybody. We're pushing past 28,000 already. Uh three videos since the last podcast where I said I'm back. Uh so, we got a big top 10 list, top 10 underrated games just to show you that I can talk about nice things now again.

8:27 You know, seven nearly 18,000 views. That is nice. Thanks, chaps. That is uh that is a sizable video and I hope I can do more top 10s that generate that many views. Um and even the Sniper Elite uh the expansion Operation Kraken, I mean, 1,600 is not a lot of views, but more than I expected for a Sniper Elite expansion. And Forest Shuffle, I was surprised by this. It's nearly at 4,000 views already and I only posted it yesterday. That is a sizable chunk of views for a 13-minute video about Forest Shuffle Smoky Mountains, as in the new one, which let's face it is practically the same as all the others. So, I'm very shocked that that's doing well. I'm not going to complain. I mean, that is a good thing. You know, I will definitely take that, but yeah, why? But, you know, cheers for watching those three videos and by all means check out all the other videos I've been I've done in the last uh couple of months. Cool, the overrated games video, 31,000 views for that overrated games video.

9:23 You get enough trolls that want to, you know, take your head off for saying it something bad about their game, but 31,000 people want to watch it. So, you know, sucks to be them. 6,000 views for Revenant. Wow, I mean, some of these videos are really getting some views in the in the last uh couple of months. Maybe it's the heat, I don't know, but I'm quite shocked by that. But anyway, it's good to see some uh progression uh despite the fact that we're in a a kind of scenario now where there's definitely a bit of a shall we say reduction in the industry? I mean, um you know, as Air Con, which is a convention I don't go to anymore and been for years, but you know, they're doing their last convention in next year. So, that'll be the last one they do before they stop doing it. Um we've had uh John Get Games, you know, recently say that he's quitting doing it. So, he's now out and now I I didn't generally watch his stuff. I don't tend to watch a lot of tutorial stuff, but you know, very popular channel and so people were sad to see him go. Uh but yeah, and one or two others, you know, small creators have dropped out over time. So, it's It is just one of those things that we have to accept that, you know, whether it's because the industry is getting stale, whether it's because the social media side of uh board gaming is getting a little bit on the feral side. I mean, certainly it does get pretty feral online, you know, the second you criticize anything, you're suddenly your head's taken off.

10:49 Um you're whether it's just that games aren't exciting anymore. We'll touch base on that a little bit later on. Uh or maybe it's just time and commitment and money, you know, there are reasons why people have to pack this in. And you know, things can't carry on forever. And even this channel, I mean, you know, I I like it. You know, I for now enjoy still what I do, but it is still effectively like having a second job. It is basically work, especially the amount of time I put in to editing these videos, which are not just camera speak and nothing else, you know, the fact that I put in all the the music, the pictures, the um the clips and everything like that. All of that takes a fun a huge amount of time compared to literally if I just switch the camera on and chatted for 10 minutes and then switched off and that was my video. All I had to do is plug an intro and outro on it, which some creators do. You know, some creators literally just do that and nothing else.

11:45 Well, they can edit if they can put out a video and upload it to YouTube and have it edited in the space of 2 hours. It would take me nearly twice as long as that just to edit a just to edit, not to record, to edit a top 10 video. That underrated games this video, that was a good 3 to 4 hours of time. I mean, that took a long time to edit that. So, it's it's definitely work and this channel cannot carry on forever. Yeah, the eventually I will get too old. Eventually I will get to my health will go down. I don't know. Eventually I want to do other things, you know, travel a bit more, you know, my mortgage is paid off now, so I want to, you know, maybe do a bit more traveling. I want to, you know, play a play more games rather than just review them, you know, like get some of these games that I don't play very often back to the table more often, which obviously would require time. If I ever meet someone in the future, you know, obviously I'll be spending time with them, so, you know, that these things can't last forever.

12:41 And the uh and eventually, you know, I don't know how long that would be, you know, it could be, you know, I hope that will be years in the future, but uh still all good things must come to an end. So, it it's going to happen at some point. It's just a case of when. Um I even looked at my Patreon thing uh the other day cuz I had to I realized that I'd been putting up the same list of special Patreons at the end of the videos and I had not bothered to check what the actual outcome is and the list is like cut in half from what it should be, which is nothing negative to say about, you know, the ones who left or like downgraded. I mean, at the end of the day, I've always said that, you know, as much as I love the support of Patreons and it's a necessity, I don't expect anybody to put themselves at financial risk for it. So, if their financial situations change, then fine, you know, concentrate more on the important stuff. Um you know, this channel does not class as important compared to your life uh your life needs and necessities. But, the you know, I did some maths of okay, let's see how much do I get a month from this, what does it cover, and all that lot. And it doesn't even break even to cover the Adobe fees for doing all the uh videos and stuff, the uh compliance fees because technically journalism is a business, so I have to run it like one.

13:59 And so, you know, there's that aspect, the compliance fees for doing that. Uh and the the ability to get to the Games Expo and Essen um the trade fairs because I wouldn't necessarily go to those all the time if I wasn't doing this channel because trade fairs are very specific type of thing. I'll go to the I'll do the other ones as a hobby, you know, HandyCon and Shake That and Roll and all that lot. They're they're hobbies, so I don't and ManaCon so I don't use uh that's all out of my own pocket. But, you know, trade fairs are a different story. I wouldn't go to the Games Expo every year if I wasn't doing the channel, and the same for Essen. It's an expensive trip. But, you know, Patreon doesn't even cover that fully. So, games I review that aren't review copies, that's all out of my own pocket, you know, the channel is not fully self-funding. And, you know, without Patreon, there would be no channel, end of story.

14:52 So, I'm all more than grateful for everybody who does subscribe to the Patreon and chip in, even if it's just a small amount. Um I'd rather have 1,000 people chip in a dollar than 10 people chip in 100, you know, so it's you know, I do appreciate it, but that's the that's the way it is. And I think some other channels have got to that point where it's not financially viable, it's not um uh time, you know, there's too much time commitment, uh or maybe games just aren't entertaining for them anymore. I mean, some Some them have one or two of them have stopped because they just don't find it exciting anymore to put out video content. And that is a factor. I mean, it can be, you know, if it it's a bit like the engineer on a starship. It can feel like a thankless job sometimes. Not most of the time it's not. I mean, you know, I put out a video, people comment and say nice things and encourage debate and stuff and that's all well and good. But, you know, there are times, you know, I think I think with the tutorial videos especially that you can sometimes put out one of those and people just don't sort of appreciate it enough. Um but that's just kind of like one of the ways it is.

15:58 And it's something that we just got to consider. You know, the industry is getting a bit like that. So, we'll just see what the future holds. Anyway, let's talk about a game that I have played several times lately. I don't think I'm going to get a I mean, I'm certainly not going to get a review copy of this and you'll know why in a second, but uh um it's not one that I intend to buy myself. So, we're going to talk a bout uh if I just get on to that page. So, let's talk about Wingspan Pocket. This is a you know, lighter travel version of uh the main game and yeah, you can understand why I'm not getting a review copy of this one. I just don't want to get it. So, but my friend has this one. So, I played it a bunch of times with them. Uh I don't have a copy myself. It's not one that I'll be personally buying. But, that's not to say I think it's bad.

16:46 I think it's perfectly fine actually. I mean, this game is basically meant to be a card driven only version of Wingspan. So, you still got birds with you know, eggs requirements and food and special powers and stuff, but it's meant to be very short, very easy for novice players to get in. And basically, it plays similar to Wingspan. So, obviously, it's not like an entire like crazy spin-off. But, the idea is is that everybody has this nest card here with and you can put eggs on it, Uh, but the eggs don't count for more than just their individual points. But, in your turn, you can either play a bird, and you have your You have your hand face up for food on the back of cards and for the bird cards. I don't get why they've introduced this. They didn't in Wingspan where your hand was face up. I'm not I'm got the time or the need to look at everybody's hand and make decisions based on that. It's like, why can't you just have your hand hidden to yourself? It just seems pointless.

17:39 But, you know, you can play a card from your hand, you can draw two cards, which could be food or birds or both or any of you know, mix of two. Or, you can lay up to three eggs on different birds. Uh, including the nest, right? So, you do one of those three things. Then, you go along the line and you only have one line. You just have the one line of birds and activate all the brown powers that are there. So, it's a bit like when you do an action in the normal Wingspan, it basically condenses it all down to one big action road that activates every single turn, no matter what. So, you draw two cards, you activate all the powers. You lay three eggs, you activate all the powers. You know, you play a bird, you activate all the powers. So, the green ones are basically passive and stuff like that. Uh, there's no on play powers, no game end powers, no nothing like that. And the powers are very basic. I mean, they usually tell you to spend X to get Y, draw more cards, birds and that. You might get another egg, you might get to tuck a bird, you might do the predator bird thing, you might get to tuck a food. So, it's got some similar stuff from the main game, but that's basically it. You keep going until somebody has played six birds, finish even turns, and then total up the points, which pretty much comes from the birds, the eggs, and tucked stuff. There is an additional goal thing like this in the middle of the table where basically two goal cards are revealed. And if you have eggs on birds that match those goals, the egg is worth one point additional. So, if the bird matches both goals, the the egg is worth an additional two points. So, it

19:10 gives you an incentive to aim for specific birds. And as you can see, it's very much smaller than the actual game. I mean, Wingspan was a normal-size square box game. Wingspan pocket is I'd say that's quite big to fit in someone's pocket. I think that would give my jacket my burgundy jacket a run for its money, but it is still a much smaller affair. Now, is the game good? Well, I mean, it's pretty much Wingspan. So, yes, it is good. You know, I like the Wingspan mechanics. I like the cool birds and stuff like that. I hope they don't do Wormspan pocket and Finsman pocket cuz I just seems like pointless. Um it's very quick. You know, it is done and dusted within 20 minutes to 30 minutes tops. It is a filler game. It definitely does exactly what it needs to say on the tin. So, overall, it's a good game, but it's not without one or two concerns. Um the main concern is the balance with regards to the scoring. You don't score a lot of points in this. You flip the card over and you track the points with two eggs, which is kind of weird and fiddly, but what the hell. Um and most of the time you're going to finish with scores of around the 30s. If you've done really well, you'll get more than 40. If you've done a little bit worse, you'll get less than 30. But most of the time your score fits in 30s. The score track goes up to 79. I'm not entirely certain how the hell that's physically possible. I mean, getting into the 40s is hard enough. I don't know how the hell you're supposed to get into the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Now, whether that's just because they had to fill the card out is another story, or maybe it's easier to do it in a solo game. I've not played it solo, so I don't know what

20:42 that's like, but maybe the solo mode gets you more points, but I don't know how physically you can get 60 or 70 points in a multiplayer game. You just cannot earn that many points from the birds before the game ends. It's just not physically possible. But yeah, the problem with the scoring is that the you know, in the original base game of Wingspan, it was always said that the eggs were too powerful. Like you had to get eggs in order to do well. And then Oceania sort of fixed that and other cards got brought in. Well, this pocket version takes that to the next level. You've got to have eggs. 99% of the time you need to have eggs or you will fail. And the only time I won this game without the eggs was because I managed to rush the game so fast that nobody else was able to do a lot. Nobody else had a lot of egg strategies, but also because the goal cards they they got so fixated on birds that didn't match the goal cards that I just basically rushed the game and they didn't have a lot of stuff to get points on the goal cards. But even then, I still only won by a few points.

21:42 I didn't win by much. Yeah, and the scores will be tight in this. So, that is one advantage. But, you you know, 99% of the time you've got to have eggs on these birds. They're worth a point each already, but also, you know, if you've got a bird that's let's say you need points that are four more and they must only hold one egg. Okay? So, you can see in this picture that there's two birds that meet that criteria. Four points, only one capacity for an egg. So, if you have an egg on both of these birds, not only do you get a point for the egg on each, so that's two points, but because each bird matches the goal twice effectively, the egg is worth an additional two points. So, for the sole cost of two eggs, you have six points. Bear in mind you normally getting your points in the 30s, that's a decent chunk of your score, from two eggs on two birds.

22:32 And if you have more capacity for eggs on some birds that meet this goal criteria, then obviously that's accumulating even more. You can rack up so many points just by having eggs on birds that the rush strategy doesn't really work most of the time. And even if you do take your time, tucked cards tucked cards are very RNG based. I mean, the predator one is entirely RNG based. Uh the ability to tuck birds and food is typically not RNG, but then it all on you having it in your hand and you can't always have them in your hand. But some of them like you know, some of the more bird of prey want you to the owls for example, they want you to tuck rat food cards from the display. But the problem is you've got four piles of cards there with different food on top. It's a bit like having a dice feeder represented by cards. If there's no rats there, you can't tuck.

23:23 So that turn loses out on the point, but then somebody else might be like, oh I get to tuck a cherry. Oh well, there's a cherry there, there's a cherry there, there's a cherry there and it's like they they can get loads of points by fluke. It's got nothing to do with bad play. It's just the fact that rats never turned up and you can't tell when they're going to turn up because it's entirely RNG based. So you've got and I'd say it's a filler, so it is meant to be RNG based, you know, so you know, nobody is going to win this more often than not because there's a lot of luck in here. But that's something you got to bear in mind. If you didn't like Wingspan because you thought it had too much luck, this one's going to drive you nuts. Although because this one only tops out at 30 minutes to play, it's a bit more forgivable to have a decent amount of luck because it is just a filler game at the end of the day. It's not a 90-minute affair. So it there there is that to bear in mind. But yeah, the eggs on the birds with the goals just seem a little bit too paramount, you know, if you don't have those, you're pretty much losing the game and so the game becomes entirely about that.

24:22 You know, if the cards in the display don't fit the goals when it's your turn, well, then you've got no incentive to take any more birds because if you do take some, you're just flipping over new ones which somebody else can then go, oh that matches the goals, great. I'll have those and it's entirely RNG based. But you know, if everybody gets into the mindset of not taking birds and there's nothing that auto refreshes the display. So you can refresh the food, but you can't refresh the birds. So you need to house rule something in there that says that if nobody takes birds after a while and agree and everyone agrees, reset the bird display, but it does seem to be that, you know, the bird's display can get quite stale, which is a bit of a problem. Um, but other than that, uh, there's only so many goals, so there's not a huge amount of uh, like variation in the game. But, as you can see, yeah, plus one point per egg on bird with those ones. So, yeah, the these match these rack up. These gold displays are just a little bit too powerful, and for some people that can literally just be the reason they won the game is because they happen to have a bunch of eggs on those. Eggs are even more important in this version than others. I mean, you just do not get enough points on the birds to make much of a difference cuz the differential on these is so small. I mean, no bird, I think, is more than six points, and even then it's rare that they'll be six. Most of the time they're two to four. So, having an extra point here or there, I mean, yes, it is relatively tight scores, but it only means so much, especially when, like, there was one game where I managed to

25:55 win, but I won because I didn't end the game on a turn I could have done. I decided, "No, you know what? I'm not going to end the game yet. I'm going to have one more turn and take three eggs." Those three eggs were worth at least about six to nine points because they got me points for the eggs, but they went on birds with goals, so they were worth somewhere between six to nine points. And it was because of that that I won the game. Had I ended the game a turn earlier, I would actually have lost. And it just proves how powerful that is. And I know it's a filler, but, you know, the game doesn't emphasize enough that eggs and those gold cards are the way to win this game, you know, that they are paramount importance. So, when you're teaching this, you had better make sure you tell people that cuz otherwise it's going to, you know, run some, you know, rub some people the wrong way.

26:48 Uh, take a drink. Um, so, yeah, that aside, the game is fine. Yeah, the game does its job. Hopefully, you can't hear the uh plane outside too much, but I do need the window open. Um yeah, I it's it does what it says on the tin. It's a travel version of Wingspan. It's not really a pocket version. I think that's a bit misleading. I'm I don't think you could get that box in your pocket. Uh I would rather they called it Wingspan Travel or Travel Wingspan or something cuz but I do think the word pocket is a bit misleading cuz it does need a bit of table space. It does need, you know, a bigger box, but it is a smaller, quicker, distilled version of Wingspan. It doesn't replace the big version. No, no, no, no. Definitely not. I mean, the big version with Oceania and other expansions will still be the daddy, but I think that this honestly does a better job of giving you an easier experience with Wingspan than Finspanned it. I don't know why you would play Finspan when that doesn't take you 30 minutes. That still takes a fair amount of time to play, has a stupid amount of table space requirement. I mean, the Finspan boards and what you need in order for table space is ridiculous for a game that's meant to be light and entry level. It's so stupid. Um when you've got this, this is the one I would get. So, it doesn't replace the big game, but it stands fine on its own. It just does have that caveat about the R the random elements being and uh when I say RNG, I mean random number generator. It's a I think it's like a role play term, but basically uh you know, randomness and

28:19 luck. So, it does have a very high randomness and luck factor, but it is a filler game. We can kind of forgive it a little bit for that. And the eggs are of such importance with the gold cards that they kind of dominate the scoring. That's a bit annoying, but you know, I think needs must, really. So, yeah. It's not a bad game. Not a bad game. Uh but that's fine. I'm going to go just go shut the window again. Window a minute. Bear with me.

28:46 There we go. Yeah, the noise was getting a little bit too much cuz unfortunately people don't understand that you don't need to rev an engine quite so much to start your freaking car or motorcycle. Ugh, god, I hate motorcycles. Um but yeah, so it's fine. Does what it says on the tin. But nothing to get too excited about. It's It's decent. I'd give it a seven out of 10. It's good. I can recommend it if you want a smaller version of Wingspan, but yeah, nothing to get too excited about. And that kind of segues a little bit onto the kind of topic really, the short topic for this video because yeah, we've as I've said, people are dropping out of the industry. People are not doing it anymore and people ask, you know, yeah, it's like you you know, you criticize a lot on the games and is there a particular reason for that? Are games just not as exciting anymore? And it's like, well, there is some truth to that last part. Is there a lot of excitement for games? And this kind of relates to two separate topics. You know, you've got the hype train combined with the level of excitement for games and the the the thing is is that we're now so far into this since the board game bubble burst back in like 2012 when suddenly games just took off and went crazy. They went viral literally. Uh the yeah, we now get thousands of games released every year. I get email requests from indie developers I've never heard of with Kickstarters that are literally just two-player take that card games we've seen all the time or

30:16 some little abstract game or whatever that I've got no interest in. You know, I get random emails from you know, they haven't even like bothered to research the channel cuz A, they would know I don't do indie Kickstarters and B, they would also know that like 99.9% of the time I know Neon Hope is technically an indie Kickstarter. But also the fact that they don't even address the email to you. You know, it literally just says, "Hi team." Or I love it when it says hi broken. You know, like if the AI or weird search it's done is basically found broken meeple and decided that broken is the first name of the person. If I ever get an email that's addressed like that, I literally delete it. I don't even read it because you could not even take the time to research the guy's freaking name. You couldn't even take the time to understand that the word broken isn't even the name of a person, you know, even if you didn't know my name was Luke.

31:11 The fact that you even consider that broken is an appropriate title of your email is like, yeah, you aren't taking the time. I have no interest in what you're doing. So, they they get auto deleted. But, you know, I don't get excited for a lot of game releases even from the big new publishers anymore. Yeah, and it's not being jaded or anything. It's just that games these days are lacking the spark or innovation. I mean, I remember when I first went to Essen, my first ever Essen fair, and it was like a kid in the candy store. So many games I'd barely heard of, so much new stuff, so much stuff that opened my eyes. It was stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia. It you know, everything was just like, oh my god, what is this? So, actually, probably a bad example, actually. Maybe Alice going through the looking glass in the Wonderland would actually be a bit more apt. But, yeah, you know, just something crazy and like glorious. Now, these days we don't have that anymore because games just don't have that spark. And I go to Essen each year, but it feels more like I'm doing it for the channel rather than I desperately want to go to Essen every year. Because, you know, I've seen a lot of the stuff at Essen. I mean, the first Essen I didn't want to leave, you know, first or second Essen I'm like, oh god, yeah, I don't want to leave. There's so much stuff here and that. Now, I get to the last day and I feel like I'm done. Yeah, because I've seen everything I'm interested in. I mean, this year I'm shortening my Essen slightly. I'm not coming on the Tuesday.

32:36 I'm not even going to the press event. I'm just going to turn up on the Wednesday because honestly the press event doesn't reveal that much to me anymore. It's like, oh yeah, there's a bunch of stuff here, but most of it I've already researched in advance. I'm going to meet with people anyway during the show. So, the press event doesn't really give me a huge amount to do apart from chat to a few people. And it's only a couple of hours if that. And then I've got to find stuff to do for the rest of Wednesday. So, I'm just going to travel up on the Wednesday now. Also, because the Eurotunnel is such an extortionate piece of for, you know, how much it cost to go over the Eurotunnel, it costs me at least 70 pound extra to go over the Eurotunnel if I'm there for five or more days. So, if I turn up on the Tuesday and leave on the Monday or turn up on the Tuesday and leave on the Sunday even, I actually have to pay more to go across the tunnel.

33:26 So, I now have to say, right, I'm turning up on the Wednesday, going home on the Sunday, and I save myself the cash because it's just not worth that extra load of money as well as an extra night of accommodation, which I'm having to pay extra this time round because stupid me forgot to book from last year, and so I've had to get somewhere expensive. On the plus side though, it's only 20 it's only literally 6 minutes walk from the Essen center, so I'm literally on its doorstep. So, I don't have to do that horrible drive in the morning for 25 minutes to get to the center and do that massive conga line of traffic. No, I can literally walk from my hotel to the center in less time it would take me to walk through several of its halls. So, that's pretty awesome, but it's costing me a bit extra to do it. Um, but yeah, I'm leaving on the Sunday.

34:13 I mean, I I tend to go by the time I get to the Sunday afternoon, I'm like, well, I don't need to stay here till 6:00. I've kind of seen what I need to see. I might as well get on the journey. The journey is a 7-8 hour trip home. It takes a long time. So, I might as well get going. And then I go to work on the Monday. I'll be exhausted, but I go to work on the Monday. So, then this time I only have to get 3 days holiday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. You know, I could take Monday off just to recuperate, but that's all I'd be doing. And maybe I'll do that this time around, I don't know, but I would take Monday to recuperate at home, not at you know, not in Essen. Yes, I know it's good to hang out with people on the Sunday night and stuff, but again, it's the cost. It's the time and that. So, you know, I'm coming up on Wednesday and leaving on Sunday this time, you know, so I've got a shortened trip.

35:00 And because I don't get that excited about Essen anymore. You know, it's not that I don't want to go. I want to go, but there's a difference between being a kid looking forward to Disney World and you know, and now it that I mean, that's what it kind of was, you know, it's like a kid looking forward to going to Disney World, you know, but now it's just okay, it'll be cool, but I've looked forward to other things before. Like my Arctic cruise was something like a kid waiting to go to Disney World, but Essen each year because it's every year, rinse and repeat. I mean, maybe it would maybe the excitement would go up if I skipped a year in between, but then if I skip Essen, you know, I'm pretty much telling the channel to self-destruct because I need the games to review. So, it's you know, and a lot of publishers aren't willing to send stuff over delivery to the UK, so I have to go to Essen to collect them half the time. It's it's that problem.

35:54 But uh the you know, that being said, why is it kind of going like this? Well, let's look at some game examples. And what I'm getting at here is the idea that I think games are just rehashing the same old themes, you know, and this is something I talked about with the Forest Shuffle review, you know, I I reward a bit of innovation. But when you see thousands of games come out every year, the natural problem that arises from that is that you know, you see the same stuff over again. And publishers are realizing or dealing with the fact that people aren't necessarily interested in a lot of new stuff, so they just like to see the same stuff over and over again. And there are so many examples of this now, where the game could still be good, but it's difficult to get hyped over it. And I do not subscribe to the hype train at all. You know, there is no game coming out at the moment that I am hyped over seeing.

36:46 And I And maybe one that I'm like, "That'd be cool." You know, I'd like to see the Stellaris game when it's finished. You know, I'd like to see these reprints. I'd like to see these games that are at Essen, but I'm like, "Yeah, I'll see them and hope they're good." But people get so hyped over stuff. I mean, as soon as Wingspan Pocket was announced, it was like, "Ooh, a new feeder Wingspan! Yay!" You know, and they do that with Stone Meier all the time. It's like, "Yay! Let's do this." But then there's, you know, other like games and that where everyone gets on the hype train like crazy, yeah? A friend of mine, a follower, was telling me um about his experience at Gen Con and the new game Drillers, okay? So, I'll get back to Forest Shuffle in a second. Um the new game Drillers, right? I'm interested to try it. CGE has a good track record, but Drillers looks like a fine deck builder to me. Uh it's had mixed reviews so far.

37:34 I've seen review ratings range between six and nine from a lot of people. So, anywhere between above average to excellent on my rating. Granted, that's different everybody else's rating score, where it's seven and above is worth your time and anything below that is trash. But you know, there's been mixed reviews. And he was telling me that at Gen Con the queues to try Drillers at the Czech Games Edition booth were insane. Like, you could not get into the games. Everybody was hyped and wanting to try this game. Now, granted, CGE have had a good recent track record, you know, Settlers and the like, you know, they and Arnak they've they've done well with their games, okay? But you know, I'm interested to try Drillers, but I'm not like, "Ooh, yeah, can't wait to try this. This is going to be amazing." No, you you set yourself up for disappointment.

38:23 I much prefer to curb my expectations and then be pleasantly surprised. You know, it's like, "Oh, this game sounds cool. I'll try it." You know, like I'm trying to find another single-player game to play on the PC and I'm done with I'm done with Hollow Knight cuz I've done a basic completion. I'm good with it. That whole Deepnest biome with all the spiders left a sour taste in my mouth. I'm vetoing playing Silksong because I don't want to come across any more spider stuff that's going to give me heart attacks. So, I need another single-player game. So, I was considering getting Claire 33, you know, that that really popular game. I don't know if I would like it or not. It's not the cheapest game in the world to get. But, part of it looks cool. Part of it I'm not sure, but it's difficult to get that excitement factor and so it it's just one that, you know, just because it's getting all these rave reviews and that doesn't mean that I'm suddenly like, "Oh, yeah." I will temper my expectations for the game and then if it wows me, then it wows me. But, I'm not going to be basing solely just, "Oh, it's a popular game, therefore I should be hyped to try it." Grand Theft Auto VI is another example. Yes, I I'm looking forward to that game, but it could Yeah, we've seen how games get butchered in modern days. We know that there's bugs and glitches that usually happen on day one.

39:36 It's stupidly expensive. I will try it and hopefully enjoy it, but I'm not like, "Oh my god, I can't wait." Dawn of War IV again got delayed a couple of months to December, which normally should have come out in September. I can wait. I'm not exactly in a hurry. I mean, especially when you're in your 40s, not much actually happens in a hurry. So, you know, that's kind of the way. But, look at these other games here. So, Forest Shuffle, right? So, the main thing that we see from Lookout Games at the moment is mainly just new editions of Forest Shuffle. So, we've got Forest Shuffle. We've had three expansions for that. We've had Dark Moor. We've had an expansion to that and now we've got Smoky Mountains, which I've just reviewed. Where I was saying that basically Forest Shuffle: of Mountains is 95% the same as Dartmoor. There's like one little tweak and that's about it. The rest of it is stuff you've seen before. It's just a paint job. And yes, I prefer this one because I love autumn. I love the paint job, but that's literally the only thing with this and yet, you know, people are excited for it and it's like, how excited can you get just for basically another roster update? You know, like the Madden uh you know, NFL games, you know, which are literally just lazy roster updates by EA charged at full price for people who were stupid enough to buy all those microtransactions.

40:48 Yeah, I'm talking to you, you idiots. Um but uh you know, Forest Shuffle is one example. Uh but yeah, Wingspan and you know, was so popular that they decided, right, well, let's make Wormspan. Let's make uh Finnspan, you know, let's now do Wormspan pocket, you know. How soon do you reckon before they do a Wormspan pocket or a Finnspan pocket? I'm telling you now, it's going to happen. You know it's going to happen. Because why not milk the cash cow for everything that it's worth? But of course, everybody gets excited the second it's a spin-off of one of the most popular games they've done. And probably the main good game they've got. So it's it's kind of just uh you know, the hype train is there, but I don't get crazy excited just because something has Wingspan in the title. Yeah, as much as Wingspan is one of my favorite games. Uh Dale of Merchants, you know, I'm doing a video for them soon uh to preview their next um uh reprint. And you know, so far so good. I've got pop I've got good things to say about it, but that's not coming out until like September. So the video won't be coming out until the actual Kickstarter launches. So, you know, not much else I can really say. But so far so good. But it's reprinting Dale of Merchants, slightly changed artwork, slightly changed mechanics for some of the animals, new packaging idea. But yeah, I love Dale of Merchants, but it's not like when it was announced, oh, this is getting a massive reprint that I suddenly jumped out of my chair AND WENT, YAY!

42:07 YOU KNOW, IT'S IT'S NOT. It's It's again, it's the same thing we've seen. It's just glossed up a little bit better. Um Uh Fantasy Realms. Fantasy Realms cool filler. Friend of mine has bought Here we go, Greek Legends, which is basically you know, Fantasy Realms but with slightly harder mechanics and more reliance on randomness. Honestly, I mean it's not bad, but I'd rather play the original Fantasy Realms. The problem with Greek Realms is that some of the ways to score points are so specific that if you just don't draw them, you will just outright lose. Whereas in the original Fantasy Realms, you could kind of get by. There was more scope to create combos, whereas this one is a bit harder. But it's still fine. It's definitely thematic with the effects that they have on some of the cards.

42:54 They do match the characters and the monsters that they're associated with, but I mean, I'm not massively into Greek Legends, so whatever. But yeah, I mean, you know, the game is just basically Fantasy Realms with slightly extra steps. You know, anything new from WizKids or is this the next thing? Um Arkham Horror, yeah. Any LCGs? LCGs are literally just rinse, repeat, print more material as expansions. But then Arkham Horror then also said, "Right, we're going to now do chapter two and start all over because we can't think of anything new to do with it, so we're just going to basically restart it." And now they're saying about reprinting second edition Arkham Horror. Granted, that is a game that I think could do with a second edition reprint, but then what does that have to say about the third edition? You know, what is now that redundant? I don't know, but you know, if Fantasy Flight aren't coming out with anything new, when was the last time they did come out with anything new actually? Yeah, what is What have they done that's new?

43:49 Everything is just more of the same. Uh other examples. Come on, where's another example? I've got a few of these. Uh The Lord of the Rings Fellowship trick-taking game. Perfectly fine game, but it is basically The Crew.

44:03 It's basically what the game is. It's just The Crew with a Lord of the Rings art pack palette on it. And then they brought out more iterations of that. It's fine, but we now have this and three editions of The Crew. I mean, that's the thing. The Crew, I mean, The Crew has bloody three editions now. I mean, look at this. The you know, I love The Crew. It's a fantastic trick-taking game, right? So, we already had The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine. Then all of a sudden we got the the the Crew: Mission Deep Sea. And also, what was the wasn't there one with a rating that I was really Oh, no, that's coming up later. Um But yeah, The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine, rank 96. Crew: Mission Deep Sea, my personal preference of the two because I think it does the mission card slightly better, but it's a whole new separate game rank 44.

44:51 I mean, don't get me started on the brokenness of the BGG ranking system and how games should be collated together and not have their own separate rating. I mean, yeah, we only have 100 games to talk about as the best games ever and two of them are going to be the exact same game. Broken BGG, honestly. Luke, don't get into another rant. Um But yeah, and now we've got The Crew: Journey to the End of the Earth. And look at this, 96, 44, 7,478. Now, granted, yes, The Crew and and The Crew: Family Adventure that came out, 12,000. Like nobody cared about that one. But yeah, The Crew, obviously this one hasn't had a chance to come out yet. It's only had 167 people vote on it, but you watch this rise up the ranks and see if it gets anywhere near the top 100. I dare you. But do I really care about it?

45:37 No, not really. I mean, I mean, I don't care what theme you shove on it, it's the same game. You've just changed a few of the little pieces you put on the side, but it's still mission cards. It's still core trick-taking. Hell, the artwork is still the pretty much the same. It's just not Why did should I get excited about this, you know? Like Cosmos, can you do something new, something different? Or are you literally just going to say, "Hey, look, we we just need you to rehash this. Just print out another Just print out the cards again. Think of 25 more missions, and we'll slap some random theme on it. There you go. There you go." And then it'll They'll ask him to do it again, and we'll get the crew uh I don't know what we've done. We've done space, we've done sea, we've done mountains. I don't know. The crew shopping mall edition. I don't know.

46:25 It's going to be ridiculous. And then Lord of the Rings. So, we're about to Lord of the Rings Fate of the Fellowship. How many times have we just seen rehashes of Pandemic come out? Pandemic this, Pandemic that, Pandemic that. And this ranked 60 on BoardGameGeek. I mean, I gave it a seven, and it just got that seven. All right? The game is fine, but it does have problems. And this is ranked 60? Cult of the new, much, people. Seriously. It really is cult of the new. But um but Lord of the Rings Fate of the Fate of the Fellowship, I mean I didn't get that excited over it coming out. I mean, the game is perfectly fine. You know, I like it, but it does have some issues with uh the difficulty, the R&G factor, the fact that you can't actually see what's going on on the board because it's so cluttered as all get out before you start squeezing, you know, eight of these flying bats, you know, or the I forget what they're Nazgûls. Yeah, so you start squeezing eight Nazgûls into a tiny little segment with a bunch of army figures, and then you realize just how cluttered this game is. But you know, it's got a lot of problems. I mean, at best I can give it a seven.

47:29 And you know, this was again, it's just Pandemic. Yes, there are some tweaks to the rules, but it is just another Pandemic. And this is the thing. It's difficult to get excited over games when we are just rehashing the same thing. You know, something new, something different. You know, give me a little bit of infor- innovation. Give me just something new and unique that I can go, "Hmm, it's different." Now, I know that's hard because we release thousands and thousands of games, so it's difficult to make anything truly new and unique, but that's why I give props to anybody who does or fills a gap in the market that strangely we still have gaps in the market. It's it's just the fact that that is what tones down the excitement. The hype train never works with me because I'm not excited for new games. I mean, what's the one of the big new exciting games at the moment?

48:19 Um I mean, Avalon the Riven Vale is one, uh which I've got to review and so far it's fine. Um it's not blowing my mind, but so far it's fine. Um but this one is basically an area control game with a card system. Okay, cool. It's not something that I'm like, you know, I it's not something that I was like, "Oh man, this is going to be the like the newest thing in area control games." But so far so good, you know, it's a it's uh it's one of those things and I wasn't desperate for you know, just because they made a good um what do they call the Shadow No, Shadow Wars is the name of the publisher. What was the name of the previous game? Uh A War of Whispers. Just because they did a decent job with A War of Whispers or something doesn't mean that I'm suddenly like, "Right, I'm excited for the next uh thing."

49:06 Maybe it's just a me problem, I don't know, but um but then for another example, uh what am I thinking of? What am I thinking of? I had it in my head. Had it in my head. Oh yes, Danes. Uh the Danes. So, I'm at the point where I'm pretty much going to sell Feast of Feast for Odin off my shelf because I don't play it. I'd rather play Fields of Arle solo. I'd rather play Caverna multiplayer. And honestly, just a 3-hour game of Tetris doesn't really sing to me, especially when you've got to have Norwegians in order to balance the freaking game. It's just not something I'm desperate for. But now everyone's excited about a 2027 release for the Danes. And they're going to need a better cover than that because that cover is boring.

49:51 Uh but um yeah, so we have basically an updated version of this. So, whatever brand of Vikings you do, worker placement, yes, and it's uh Tetris. Um does it even have any pictures? Yeah. All right, yeah, it's got more of these like polyomino bits, and I know Paul Grogan has done some content or is doing some content for this. But, as I look at it, it's basically Feast for Odin 1.5. I mean, they obviously haven't streamlined it because board game designers and publishers don't streamline anything these days. So, we're basically talking a more complicated version of Feast for Odin. As if the game needed to be more bloody complicated. Uh but, you know, everybody is like going, "Oh, I can't wait for this. I can't wait for the Oh, it's the Avatar meme OVER AGAIN."

50:39 SO,

50:42 YOU KNOW, FOAMING at the mouth. And it's like, "Really?" I mean, for 1.5 version of a game you already technically own? It you know, is it going to make the previous one redundant, in which case you're going to have to sell it off anyway? You know, or are you going to keep that one in there? I mean, you you you don't even know if this one will replace the original. You might get this and find, "Okay, it's cool, but why would I own both?" I don't see any reason you would own both. They're practically the same game by the looks of it. So, you're basically going to choose one, and then does that mean you're going to get this one and go, "Well, that was cool, but I'd rather keep the original," which again is not going to be a justification for the hype train, or are you going to be like, "Oh, I like this one more. Therefore, I now have to sell this one," which new which very few people are going to want to buy at that point because they will have preferred this one. I need to sell it now before the demand dies out. So, it's you know, I don't it's it's a weird one, and you know, the you know, the hype train is never something I subscribe to anyway. You know, I don't get why people should get that excited over something when they have no idea what it's going to be like.

51:48 Usually just because one person has said, "Oh, it's cool." And most of the time the people who say these new upcoming games are cool are the ones who literally just say good things about everything. You know, everybody goes You know, Rado is a cool bloke, but everybody goes ape the second he says a good thing about an upcoming Kickstarter game. The guy doesn't say anything bad about games because he doesn't put out any negative videos. So, how can you possibly take that as, "Oh, this is the reason I need to get hyped over this game." Because everything the Kickstarter previewers talk about is positive. I'm like the only person out there who when when Kickstarter previews are done that will actually say a negative word in the review or in the preview. You know, I've done Don't Starve, I've done, you know, Lands of Ever Shade, I've done a bunch of, you know, preview stuff. I still say criticisms or stuff that they need to sort out.

52:44 You ever catch anybody else doing that? No. I'm glad to be unique, but it you know, I can't get excited just because one person on the internet says this is amazing. And I don't expect people to do that for my stuff either. If I come out and say something's a 10 out of 10, I don't expect you all to go out and buy it immediately. Some of you won't like the game, and that's fine. But you need to make your own decision on that. And people like the masses are just too easily swayed by, you know, hearsay and hype. Um you know, the one of the best quotes I've ever heard from a movie was Men in Black um uh where uh Tommy Lee Jones's character uh Was it his J and K, isn't it? Yeah. So, K saying to J when he's trying to recruit him, and you know, Will Smith said, you know, says like, you know, "What's with all the secrecy stuff? You know, you know, people are smart, they can handle it." And he says, "The person is smart.

53:37 People are dumb, ignorant, crazy animals, and you know it." Or dumb and ignorant, dangerous animals, and you know it. And it's basically the mob mentality thing. That a person by themselves thinking logically is smart to deal with these with things. But, you know, masses in a group, social media, and all that lot, you put a big group of people together, and suddenly it just becomes dangerous chaos. So, you know, and that's basically like the hype for games. You know, the individual person will think about whether they need to get a game or not. But, the masses will simply hear somebody say a game is going to be amazing, or hear that it's like the same thing they've seen before just with extra steps, and go crazy. And I don't jump on that train. You know, games aren't as exciting as they used to be anymore. I still enjoy board gaming. I still enjoy the hobby. I still like playing these games, but even then, I don't even play a lot of these solo anymore. Yes, they can be played solo, but whenever I get the time to play to do something, I usually find myself just going on the PC. Normally, I'd go to the gym, but, you know, can't at the moment.

54:39 But, I go on the PC and play like Stellaris or Deep Rock Galactic or some other single-player game I'm doing because they're quick. You know, you can get on the game and instantly load up. You don't have to do set up time. You don't have to relearn the rules of the game. It's already in your head and stuff. And it's why I don't play a lot of these solo as much as I used to. You know, I I still get the idea of solo gaming, but to take out something like Kanban EV and set it up on the table and relearn all the solo rules and then play it through, it takes hours and hours. And I'm like, "Why go through that hassle when I could just load up a video game?" It you know, or load up a board game that is quicker, like Cascadia that you can set up in seconds and play a solo game of that nice and quick. So, you know, stuff like these The Searchers are typically reserved for, you know, multiplayer. And even then, how often do they get played? So, it's it's just I don't know. Is it a me thing? Is it a group thing? It'd be interesting to get your comments uh, in the video uh, version of this to kind of discuss it really. But, yeah, I mean, are we just at a point where the industry is starting to die out a little bit? Is it getting stale? Is the excitement factor for new games dwindling for people? Or are you still like a kid in the candy store? I would imagine that if you are new to the hobby, you're probably still in that kid in the candy store phase, cuz I was the exact same. You know, first couple of years, first few years, kid in the candy store with all these new games. But, as time goes on, things do get samey. Things get to get stale. And I think that's the same with

56:10 any hobby interest. You know, I used to play the keyboard when I was younger. It got to a point where I wasn't doing it as much anymore. Eventually gave it up. I wish I continued because, frankly, having a musical talent is, uh, a good thing to have. Not to mention girls love a person who can, um, uh, play a musical instrument. But, you know, creative person, basically. So, it's yeah, there are regrets. But, that's what can happen. Things just go stale or die out. Um, hell, I mean, the amount of single parents I see on, uh, apps, uh, dating apps and stuff like that, you know, relationships can get to that point, you know. The You get over the initial honeymoon period, and then things start to, you know, people start drifting apart. Or kids get involved, and suddenly that causes ruckuses and stuff. And it's like, even they can eventually the excitement factor can die out for that sort of thing. It It's just a natural way of life. So, yeah. I'm just curious what people's thoughts are.

57:08 But, this is why I don't get on to hype trains. This is why I mean, yeah, it's not that I'm critical of, like, saying every game is bad just because I'm not as excited for them anymore. But, it's why I'm able to be more critical of games because I don't get suckered into this hype factor for a game. And like, "Oh, this is going to be amazing no matter what because it's a big crate and cost 200 quid or whatever, and it's got all these minis." It's like, no, I'm able to look at it with a more logical um, um you know, more what's the word? Temperate viewpoint. And that's why I will happily criticize games despite the backlash it can get. So, you know, there's just that. But I'm curious to know what your thoughts anyway. Anyway, we have literally just clicked over the hour mark on the video. So, I think I'm going to wrap it up there. I've got to go to the cinema and a meal soon. Uh so, hopefully I've got enough time to edit this video and get it online before then. Um we're going out for Thai. And we're going to go see Coyote vs. Acme. Um the UK is pretty much not using not showing this movie. I mean, it's like one showing a day at all these cinemas and it's like midday that it's the showing. Like they've kind of and even then you got to have captions.

58:15 It's like they've basically just said, "Oh, this is some random kids movie. We don't need to give it much hype." Despite the fact that it's getting good reviews. Well, we want to see it. I fancy a laugh. We're going to go see it. So, um I'm sure I'll give my thoughts on that on my Facebook page at some point. But uh yeah, I'm off. Take care. See you later. And I'll see you on the next Broken Meeple podcast video. So, uh thanks for your support during the surgery. I'm now in a good point with that. And uh if you are able to support the Patreon, I love you like love you kindly. But if you can't, you can't. I'm just glad that you watched the video, comment, and enjoy yourselves. So, take care. Have a good time.