Best Board Games from Airecon 2025 - Event Review! Galactic Cruise Steals the Show

0:00 Hello and welcome to Bor Stupid. My name's Wave and I'm Matt and we're freshly back from Aircon 2025. Yeah. From the north. From the north. We fought back to the south. Back to the south and all the before the barbarian barbarian dragons and all that stuff. We came back from the wall and it's fine. We survived. Well, actually, I have to say there were no barbarian and Aragate is such a a wonderful little town. They loved it. Beautiful. It's very pretty. Didn't know what to expect, but it's very lovely. And the convention center was cool as well. But let's talk about aircon. And before we talk about aircon and all of the cool stuff and all of the best things that we played, maybe you should think about pinning the subscribe button. Exactly. You don't have no barbarians. No, exactly. You hit that one and uh we're happy. You're happy. Everybody's happy. The barbarians are happy. The barbarians are really happy about it. And uh and after that we can go into and see all the games that we played and few surprises. Yeah. Stay on.

0:58 Rolling dice, feeling nice. Cardboard dreams and games keeps click subscribe. It's a vibe for stupid game for you and me. Here's what you should play and see. So Matt, starting at day zero, the journey up from the south coast of England all the way to Harrow Gates up up the north. Um yes, cuz u it was actually day one of the convention. Uh we got jobs unfortunately. So we went out Thursday night. So we take the train um on Thursday night and uh we played a lot of games on the train. So it was a long ride. However, we played, if I remember right, we started with um uh Compile. We did. We played Compile. Compile is amazing. It's basically We'll talk about Compile another time. Yes. But my gosh, it's basically possibly our new favorite two-player card game. Yes. But we will we'll probably do an entire video around that or something like that because uh it's a game that um is kind of breaking the market for the people that knows about that is breaking the market. It's amazing and there's a new version coming so there'll be content on that compiled two-player car games and sea mixed with netrunner mixed

2:29 with rat lands. That should give you the idea. But anyway, it's brilliant after that. Um, and that was while we were drinking the first Steini on the on the train. Train beers necessary. Uh, then we played we also got another game of Castle Combo, which is again a fantastic card game by the way. One of the best card games with the released in 2024. And this is one of this is a grower. The more I play, the more I like it as well. So, um, this is was the banger from uh, um, AET last UK last year. I think every copy were sold out at the last UK GPI as well gone and this even at very few few copies. Uh it's basically um a table tablo uh where you build in this 3x3 grid with your cards. Each card interact with each other and then you scoring point with this very quirky um graphic.

3:25 We talked about the game a while ago with actually Rob. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, really cool. Again, well, we'll probably talk a little bit more about that one as well. It's a fantastic game. Yeah, it's really grown on me. We really enjoyed it and it's a game that is a very good with one versus one. Yeah, it's great. Two player, three player, four player. Scales well. It scales really well. It's super fun. It's super fast and um there's a little stickier than you think as well. It is you start. So basically, yeah, you need to combine cast combo combo together. Uh you're comboing your cards on your tableau to score more point. A certain card we're going to give you multiplier for all the cards in this or that position on this or that line of this and that color. Uh set collection uh with an open market that you can modify available cards available cards.

4:17 It's it's really interesting. If you haven't uh checked it out and you're looking for a card game that works with every play account, definitely give it check it out. And then we actually got there finally. So that was our three-hour train ride. We were just drinking beers on the train having having a good time. Dropped the bag at the start at the hotel. That was uh quite a interesting. Yes. But we boiled maybe another time. Uh but then we got to the show and we started to look around the the venue. We had a we had a walk cuz at that point it was quite late. So, the exhibitor area was closed, but the bar was not. And the bar was not, and that was great. And the open gaming area was open till 11:00 p.m. Yeah. Not only the bar and the the open gaming was was open, the library was open as well. Yes. And the library is fantastic. By the way, we had a look around. There's some great games in there. Some rare, unusual games that you can't necessarily buy titles that I will say, "Wow, that's you can rent that.

5:15 That's cool." Yes. including stuff like Butter Cell Galactica. Some very heavy and very expensive and hard to find games that were in the library. So yeah, very well done, thousand games in that library. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely great. And we were knackered, but we wanted to find something that we could play in two two players in like half an hour while we're there. Have a beer. And we found uh Caesar by Balamorei. Uh this was a sequel or a um I suppose spiritual sequel to Blitzkrieg which was and and and this was the Rome version. And my gosh, man, we'd never played it before. No. But I think I found another favorite two player. Yeah. Um we took out the rules. So it it's always hard when you like when you take a box in more or less what the game does, but never actually study the rules. And with the rules on the table, we were playing in 15 minutes maximum. Um, and what the game is is siege. It says siege Rome in 20 minutes.

6:13 And that's what what you do. That's it. One, one versus one and you trying to conquer Rome and all the territories around it. In this kind of like ter territorial control two player games. That was pretty surprising. Area majority using these tokens which have different values and you have a hidden screen. So you're always trying to guess what your opponent might have left because there are set number of tokens. You've got different bonus tokens you can get. You're trying to create big contiguous groups of territory. It's such an amazing game. I was I was staggered after our first play. I went this is really really good. There are there are some combo that are kind of like game breaking in terms of how powerful they are. But that's why the reason the game is 20 minutes and as soon as both the players knows about the those um breaking combos, they kind of try to stop each other from doing it. Um really interesting about how you basically put a towel down in between the territories once the territory is closed. So means that all the um spaces around have been allocated with the with the with the tiles you will going to score see which one of the two player wins that um territories and getting the bonus. But not only that because it's not just the one who's winning in that territory is taking the bonus. the bonus will go to the last player putting that down. So, you might lose the lo the warm up, win the battle, something like that. Uh but yeah, absolutely. I think um Caesar might go

7:45 in one of our next videos when we're going to talk specific about two player games in a more detail wide. So stay tuned for that. We're going to do a what we're calling at the moment a bias guide titled TBC World. Absolutely. Um, and after that the it was time to go to bed and uh ready for actually day one. But we'll talk about this. Let's go to day one. Heat. Heat.

8:52 Okay. When then um it was the morning after an uh sleepless night because the hotel walls were paper thin. Even being a very nice hotel, very classy, lovely hotel, paper thin walls and well, at least my neighbor was snoring like a tractor. Yeah. Um, anyway, the breakfast was really, really good. Breakfast was lovely. Fantastic. Yeah. Despite the all of the neighbors in the hotel apparently revving chainsaws in you. Yeah, it was quite of a Well, anyway, doesn't matter. Let's go to the event. We got in and uh we've been stopped literally after 30 seconds by our friend Rob from Met UK. Hello Rob. To play something nice and light for the for a start of the day. That's a lie. We played Shackleton Bass first thing in the morning. Rob was like, "You've got two seats. Would you like to sit down and play it?" Yeah, we'll sit down and play it. Shackleton base is a heavy game. It is. It is. We knew that it was a We We kind of like had a look um UKG when it was um presented last um last year.

9:54 Um is uh heavy Euro. Yes. Uh with some quirky and interesting um mechanics that I haven't seen in other games so far. Yeah. Very interesting. Kind of does a like a worker placement type game. You're putting your workers out, but you got different color workers. Each worker will give you a different effect depending on where they go, different bonuses. Uh but then you also have this kind of area majority type thing going on in the middle of the map where you have you're trying to like build um buildings over the moon. Uh the um the idea of the premises of the game is that you are uh the next um um very rich person trying to colonize the uh the moon and you are in the Shackleton crater. So one of the biggest crater in the that is represented in the in the main board and uh each turn you will you will have to pick up a specific um uh spaceship with specific workers. Some are scientists, some ones are engineers and and you need to use them for specific action against in a worker placement manners. Yeah, but at the same times you need to put them you need to build the bases on the moon. So filling up the the larger board and um and then having this weird um but very interesting territorial control piece.

11:21 Yeah. As well as like a ton of component actions. So it kind of uses this lassardesque type uh design in a way where you've got always a way of generating component actions which could be like 20 different things. You go I could do this or I could do this or I could do this. We've got these three corporations that I need to satisfy. And that I think is one of the main selling points of the game with replayability is the three corporations that are going to be joining you on this expedition to the moon. Uh they will give you different bonuses and they'll play in completely different ways. Yeah. And the special actions that you can do will be different depending on the uh on the corporations that you bring into the game. Exactly. Then there is these things where you um a certain point you can place your work on around the the crater and at the end of the of the round you're basically tracing line of sight of of those uh of those worker and depending on which building cross that the line of sight they will decide to go to this or that building. I thought the um it was it was it was cool game. Uh heavy heaviness wise I was fine with, but um I thought it was just a little bit fiddly for me and I'd like and the look of it I wasn't particularly sold with, but it was cool. I think if you like those types of games where you're generating a lot of uh you're trying to generate a lot of bonuses and interactions, you utilizing your limited number of moves, like your single movement. What can I do to get the most out of this one worker? Uh you'll probably like that. Yeah. Uh, so not the the lightest of the games. No. Um, with

12:54 a with a cool team. Yes. Um, so if you if you're in that looking for a for a heavy Euro sci-fi thing, sci-fi. Yeah. Future sci-fi. Yeah. Yeah. Futurist futuristic future. Yeah. Near future. That was that was really cool. Um, after that, uh, what else have we We did something completely different. So then we went into the indie area, the sort of demo area, which is really cool. So you got lots of folks that turning up with their games and you can just sit down and they'll tell you all about them and you can play them and uh normally these are sort of uh one man bands as Matt Hawson or like independents uh and you can play their games. And Matt uh you played uh Fetching Feathers by Chris Krisco. Yes. The um uh the designer of Moving Wild Zulie. uh same game. Um one is distributed by Oink Games and the other one is distributed by himself himself, I think. Um it's the same game. Um so don't get don't get um scared about it.

13:55 It's not one of the the copy of the other. It's the same game just um different copyrights and and stuff. Um anyway, the uh Chris came with um his new game um where you basically is it's a little bit um in the same vibe of moving wilds. Uh but instead of moving a lot of different like elephants, lions up there, it's all about birds. Um the very cool cool things about the game is first of all the artwork is fantastic. Um each each um uh bird will have a very specific hat that I don't know why but hey that was a very cool um very strong um artwork and that that is like oh amazing that I recognize that game because of the artwork. Um and basically you're still trying to um get as many birds as you as you can in this close drafting and do it every round the cards are going to go around. um and then placing it in your top blow. Uh the the uh very interesting mechanics of the game is the territories. So like in moving wild you will have territories with um instead of capacity this time is going to be with certain type of food.

15:09 Okay. Uh that will attract this or that animal. However, each round and this the game is going to be composed of three rounds. The territory card will flip from one side to the other. uh that means that those birds maybe will not have that you collect in that specific point they will not going to have the right food in the next round. So you need to get more territories. So trying to figure out okay as soon as this round finish I need to flip so these birds can be moved here. Oh no I don't have space for that one then flies away. So um and again and each bird will have some uh some super power to to give you more points. Uh, some of them they want to be alone, some of them they want to be in big flocks, some of them want to be near another type of birds. So, it's it's very very cool. Yes, I I really enjoyed it. This game is going to come out on Kickstarterish, still the TBC uh in the summer. Uh, but really one that we need to keep in the on under our radar cuz it's absolutely um a banger. Oh, there you go. Love it. Fantastic game. While I was playing that, you were playing I was playing a dungeon crawler. I was playing No. Yes. Can you Can you imagine? I was playing the uh the the Wayne's games and Wayne was playing the Mac games. I mean, yes and no. It wasn't. It was kind of I was playing Cryptorn, which is a solo Roland Wright dungeon crawler based or I suppose inspired by those Soulsorn type games. So meant to be very difficult but also very simple to play and very Yeah.

16:39 very straightforward. And it was something I think pitched to us as something that you can do like you you can take it on a plane and you you know while the time away while you're traveling or doing it in between other things as well. Very straightforward uh essentially dice based game. You're throwing d6s and then building this dungeon and then you are activating the dungeon by going through it, fighting various bosses, choosing to pick up loot or not and then trying to go through the different dungeons. Um very simple, very straightforward. Uh, seems pretty pretty fun, enjoyable. Yeah, you played a dungeon. I played dungeon like half an hour after while you were chatting and doing PR. Uh, uh, but it literally in five m I've done the first dungeon, the very basic introduction in one in less than 5 minutes. You need two dies and a pen. That's it. And and that's it. All the information about the enemies on that dungeon are going to be on one of the pages. the game is still in its um taking shape. So ideally toward the end of all or UKG we should see something a little bit more um concrete but it's going to be on a bind book. So you flip the pages and you keep going dungeon after dungeon. Um some of the dungeon are going to be 5 minutes and some of them could be way longer. So you can build you make a bigger dungeon. Yeah.

17:59 Yeah. And of course, all the object and the cool swords and helmets or shield that you find along the way, you keep it for your for your character, so you can go and try to kick the ass of the of the bigger boss. Exactly. Really cool concept and certainly something to keep an eye on. Um especially with the sort of rise in in the solo player games. So, it was really cool. I enjoyed that. And talking about solo in the demo zone, we play another game that we saw at UKG last year because they had a quite a a unique stand. Um, and we're talking about Time Troopers. That is a solo deck building game. Really cool as well. I I actually really liked this. So, uh, premises, think about, um, Stargate. Yes. Basically, think about Stargate.

18:46 Uh, so you going through this Stargate, let's call it. Uh, you you're basically trying to recover some artifacts from the past to not let the world go to hell. To hell basically. I couldn't find the words. Yeah, family shark. Um, and and you're going to travel to ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, or um, a lot of like very exotic places and, jungle, deserts, under the water, and all that stuff, all in in different time zones. Um, and while you're doing this, you will have to deal with the with the locals that could not be very um, friendly sometimes. I think you're some demon from uh, and Yeah, exactly. There's always this guy with mustache and and and metal things in his hand. Um, so you need to be stealthy trying to find the things, not killing anyone because otherwise it's the grandparent paradox and and all the thing at the same times you're going to have the bad robot guys from the future that they come to try and kill you. It's really awesome cuz I think what they've done here is they've also done this kind of almost narrative adventure. So, you've got some decisions to make as well where you're going to be choosing where you're going to go next.

20:04 Uh, there's some really interesting surprises in the box that we were told about where there'll be different puzzles and things that you'll have to deal with. Not just pure deck building. There'll be cool stuff that you'll have to do different ways. If you remember the big hotness, I want to say about 10 years ago was time stories. maybe a little bit longer and like that did cool things and unexpected things where you are, you know, with with the cards that you draw and I think it's that you've got this interesting stuff with your scenario that um I think is going to be really cool. It sounds very imaginative and um and quite interesting and as a solo game, this is something very meaty. Yeah, it is. And we were, again, we're not um solo players, but we really enjoyed time trooper and um krypton.

20:50 Yeah. Um so, we were having a conversation about we might try to cover in the future a little bit more of solo gaming if something cool as time trooper comes out soon. when we can maybe yeah because we played it kind of like together. Yeah, exactly. Matt was playing it. I was like we're making decision. The good the good things about the scenario as well that it was quite short. So scenario will be like 20 30 minutes. That means that uh if you if you're having kids, you can put the kids to bed and then roll a couple of dice and uh play some cards and play some cards for after after that or you stick something in the oven play play scenario built in such a way out the box where very easy to set up too. So that props that was great. Um moving on, we also got another there was a main exhibitor's hall map. Yes. And the big exhibitors hall had all sorts in there. It had a bit of asthma day. It had a shirt. It had loads of retailers, but it also had a couple of indie folks in there as well as in the demo zone. But these are the folks that are a bit closer towards the end of the end of the story when it comes to releasing the product. And we played a game called Restless Spirits, which was a competitive card game. Uh, two to four players. Two to four players. Exactly. Kind of a little bit of hand management, a little kind of a little bit of resource management. Yeah, it was um quite interesting. It had fantastic artwork. So yeah, so all the game is um inspired by Japanese um

22:24 folklore and the and all the the uh the artwork is very much Gibli/ um uh stuff more modern. It go literally from from Gibli to Jujutsu Kaisen if you if you know what I'm talking about. All mix it together. And basically what you're doing um you're going to be one of the one of the sorcerers trying to attack to you entice the the spirits up to three spirits whoever attire three spirits at the wins the game. Exactly. Um very nice very quite simple. The the rules were were pretty simple cuz at the end of the day Yeah. You got a little bit of end management. You got a market where you can buy object that will attire and yeah attract to the spirits do you? Once you attract the spirits put it on your board. You need to pay whatever the requirements are through other cards. Um and then they might give you bonuses. They might give you combo um to to get more spirits to get to uh be able to play more cards.

23:30 Um again the game is almost complete or is about complete there there about Kickstarter very soon and uh yeah Kickstarter coming up. We we'll follow this one. I I I deeply love the the artwork and the and the style of the game. That's very much me. It's just planning and all the subs something I I truly love and been fun since I was a kid. Um, so I I really I really like the stuff and the game itself was uh not too complicated, fast, pretty enjoyable. Enjoyable I think. Yeah, it would be great if three players potentially for Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I will be very curious to to play Yeah. to play with um with a higher count of people. Um that was uh quite interesting. Absolutely. We also in that very same area of the convention, we did a lot on day one, didn't we? Holy moly. Uh we played Heroes of the Shire. Yes, this is basically the if you imagine dice thrown but cranked up to about 50 uh and with zero randomness. It's kind of that it's a super heavy dice thrown. So, uh the shine is has been out now for a couple of years or a year and a half. There are new expansion versions out. Um there is um a new um starter box um arriving in on Kickstarter in the summer. Um and you can basically the game is uh predominantly um um a dungeon crawler

25:01 where you got a boss battler type of thing where each one each player will have his own u player player board. on this player board there are tons of of uh stats and tons of uh abilities that that you can do. Um and it it took like the the storm online for the PVP side of the game cuz that is uh is something that the guys of the year of the summer are really passionate about. And um to describe you as he described it to us and it's very close to my heart as well is take um World of Warcraft. Yeah. And put it in into a board game in terms of like how you build your character, how much this the stats and everything works. Um but on the arcore level. Yeah.

25:50 I mean there was a ton of tokens in the game as well. Loads of potential interactions. Um yeah, I think I would probably cuz we played it as a PvP game. Yeah, we played two versus two. That is the the preferred uh PvP style. Again, that I think taken from World of Warcraft that the arena style when you play two versus two. So, not just the attacker um uh not the DPS character will rule, but you need a support and you can create synergy and combo with the players. Exly. I mean, I think that was fine, but I think I would much prefer that as a cooperative game, Mr. Boss. I think cuz I think I said to you I was like this isn't normally my kind of thing but if we were playing it together against a against something uh I think I would enjoy it more as a co-op. Yeah. And I have to say we forgot to pick up the box. Um we'll uh we'll I mean we'll we'll arrange something for UKG to play co-op. Uh but I'm I was a big fan. You liked it a lot. I loved it.

26:49 But I do realize how it's it's more uh for the arc fans. It's a gamers game. So again, if you're looking in a game of games with World of Warcraft vibes in terms of you build it with the PVP, with the PVE, all mixed together, uh definitely have a look to Hero of the Shrine. Very good. After Heroes of the Shine, uh then we had a a one of the big big folks of the ball game where we went to Pegasus. Oh, you were there with a couple of games. Sarah came along like Hello, Sarah. Came along with a couple of games and that was really fun. We played first I am done which was okay flux silly card game. Uh yeah flux I will even put it like in the categories of stuff like exploding kit and exactly that kind of game. Um unstable unicorns let let's say that that stuff probably not for me not for you but nothing wrong about it. It's a it's a party game. It's a fun party family game. Yeah exactly. You could play that card. It's deck of cards. Have some fun with that. But the game that I really enjoyed playing with Misos Misos.

28:00 So that was cool. Yeah. So in Misos is this um set collection/lo building uh based in we are all cavemens. We are all different tribes. And you basically during your turn need to attire more people to join your your clan or tribe or or what or whatever you want to call it. You're going out like on the little expeditions to try and get these folks to your tribe and you'll get bonuses for doing so. Um and but each there's games played over several eras, but each era there's specific events that you need to prepare for. certain tribes people will be more cuz the cuz the people that you can that you can get into your clans are going to be hunters are going to be gatherers craft people they're going to be artists they're going to be shamans um and the events that the random events that going to come out is going to tell you like oh okay for this turn you need uh five food because you need oh sorry you need to feed all the all the people in your clan if you didn't get the the hunters that will give you food you will not have that that you get some minus points. You get minus points. Um or I don't know the gatherers that needs to again feed or you've got the shamans who's got the most shamans or who's got the most of this symbol and you'll get points for that as well. Utilize this this um kind of interesting I suppose not really a bid but like you put you place your work on where you want to go. Um, and that

29:30 place will tell you what cards you can take from either above or below these sort of tiles in the center board. The further out you go, the more cards you can take. Great. But also, it means you're going to be last back, which means you'll be last to go next round in next round. Yeah. So, you won't get first choice of what you get. And also cards, people will take the cards. The resolution will go from left to right. So, from the person who went closest to the person who went farthest. So, it might be Yeah, you want to take loads of cards, but by the time it gets around to you, the cards you want might be gone. Yeah, exactly. And you need to take cards that you don't want. So, you need to take more people that you need to feed and you don't really that are pointless to your client. That was a really cool decision. Yeah. Uh we really enjoyed it. That was quite a quite a surprise. Um I think yeah that is a game that I would recommend if someone that is looking for um um set collection relatively lightish collection game it's a family plus plus maybe the bottom of the intermediate.

30:34 Yeah old bottom inter I I I truly enjoy the game and um I thought it was really good. Absolutely. Absolutely. I would recommend uh Mises uh we play the last thing we did on Friday. Oh my god, what a day that was. Uh, is we played Gwent and I'm going to I'm going to flex here. So, we we played Gwent. So, from again the new the new um the new version of Gwent version not out yet. No, it's going to be out in the summer. Uh, so again, Gwent is a transposition of the the Witcher 3 card game that is in the game as a as a board game. Uh in the in the box you will find every single card there are present in the in the game and you can build your deck. There are different faction as ex is a is a one to one represent the same of the of the game. Um however there are a few different rules that you can add. For example, one was the two versus two mode. Two versus two mode is uh something that the guys had literally just added to the game to the rule book.

31:40 So, it's been tested and everything. Um, so it's going to be in the in the final version of the game. But the cool things is that me and Wayne were the first one to play that version, the first people ever in the UK to play two versus two Gwen. And uh it works basically two decks working on the same lines. Um, but you can combo the two decks. You can uh you can share like, "Oh, we're going to do this, we're going to do that." Um, it was me and Rob versus Wayne J and JM. Yeah. And I have to say that me and Rob were the first player to win a two versus two game of Gwen. I blame JM in the entire UK. Flex. That was fun. I enjoyed that.

32:25 We won't talk too much about Gwen. If you know Gwen is basically Gwen, but it was very fun. Um, really really enjoyed. Yeah. If you like the IP, if you know the IP. Uh, otherwise I think we'll talk about a little bit more about when in the future cuz closer to the date of um um we'll we'll show you more of the game. Really fun if you're a fan is a musth have I would say. But our final day that was um that was day one. Uh in the evening a little bit of a party, a few drinks uh spoke with a lot of uh a lot of people. It was was great. So um thank you thank you all for the people that we met in that evening. We had a lot of fun. Um, great. So, we went back to sleep after and then we went back to sleep.

33:45 Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

34:38 And our final day at Aircon was our second day. We could have stayed a little bit longer and it would have been nice, but we had stuff to do. We had games to play. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What we decided to do was not make the mistake of day one, which was starting with something really heavy. Uh again, this is Wait, this is day This is day the second day. At that point overnight was not it was worse than day one. I slept like probably half an hour with the guy next to me. It was a It's a track. It was a pig. Terrible. I haven't closed my eyes. You had the same experience. Different levels. So, it was full of that. You tell uh and a wedding going on and a wedding nightmare. Anyway, no sleep. No sleep. No sleep. Let's start with something nice and light. No, didn't do that. We played Galactic Cruise. So, and we knew we knew that we were gonna sit in something um yeah, we were gonna go and see uh the guys from Drandler anyway. Yeah, because a lovely folks, hello Drander Games, one of the best publishers in the UK doing they're doing really great work at the moment and Galactic Cruise is the one that they are localizing for the UK, bringing to the UK market. And uh we saw a cool little project based on their new game coming out little preview, but you can see on their Instagram about that.

35:58 Uh, and also we got to play Galactic Cruise for the first time. And what a game that is. My gosh, what a beast. I I have to say uh that I was really scared about the game because for the for the for the width of the game, the table presence and there was a lot to look at. Uh, but Will from Dander Game uh gave us probably one of the best um rule explanation brilliant I ever had in my life. The board game wizard. Find him. The board game wizard. Yeah, we'll put link somewhere. Wonderful man. Great teacher, a great narrative teacher of the game. Uh explaining everything I had and I I loved the game. I was at at that point I I was like boom. Yes. Even even I'm not that smart. I'm getting all the rules all together. Amazing. It's really good. It's It's heavy. It's very heavy.

36:51 It's at the limit of the things I think I enjoy. I'll be honest with you. But it is really, really cool. And the reason I say that is because it is so vastly wide. On your turn, you have numerous things you can go and do and numerous options and they all seem equally interesting. Um it was very very cool. So there's a bunch of potential in that game. Yeah. So the the premises of the game um is again in this retrofike look of you are going to depending on the player ascending to the throne of the Galactic Cruise Galactic Cruise Company. Um, and everything is about that. So, you need to build the ships, sell the tickets, get the the ads on the ticket, get people to buy the tickets in the same times making the ships like really cool and R&D. Exactly. All of that sort of stuff. Getting your resources. Yeah.

37:48 Upgrading the ships, getting the fuel, getting the oxygen in place, of course, and the food. Um, uh, calling for AGMs for your general for showing off how how cool you are, going up the the tracks of, uh, coolness in terms how cool you are in the reputation. The reputation. Um, you can do a lot. And there is uh, we we definitely going to do a little bit more in depth content. We're going to do a whole thing on Galactic Cruise cuz this game needs it. It's It's worth it. Yes, this game needs it. But absolutely. So, suffice it to say, thank you to Dr. Games for our overview and for uh the copy of Galactic Cruise. We will have some great content on that for you very soon. Uh we also got to to play uh Living Forest Jewel, which if we go to the other end of the scale of things that I enjoyed, didn't enjoy that.

38:40 Unfortunately, not. I like living for living forest, by the way, is a fantastic game. Won the Kennesar about three two three years ago. Great game, but the dual version was kind of bad. It was kind of bad. I think I think at that point I I personally was completely inaccurate because it's uh but at the same time um we played all the games while I was even worse than I and I enjoyed it. This one I felt there was nothing more than I I will play living forest. Living forest. I will play living far didn't give me I think I think this is the first big casualties on all these dual the the dual mania the dual mania I think I think leaving forest might be the first casual then again we played it in um in a state in a physical state where we were zero running on fumes but at the same time the the rule books was was not great. Uh the guy teaching us the game was like, "Yeah, the rule book is not great. It's not it's not great." Um but I I would Yeah, we both agreed that I would go with your regional. We'd rather play living forest. Yeah, absolutely. So, uh moving on as well. So, the final things that we did, so we didn't do as much on day one.

39:56 We did a load of stuff. Day two, we were going home. Uh, but we did get to uh chat to Max uh friend of the show, one of our our wonderful subscribers and uh we hung out and played some games with him in his part. Yeah. Yeah. That was amazing. First Fay that I met that is not my girlfriend. Super lovely people and we played some games with them. We played five towers which I never played. It's pegasil card game. It's essentially a very light bidding game. You're going to be uh bidding for let's try and build these towers. Very simple. Um, it was fine, but um I think I'd rather play high society if I'm playing. Yeah, something like that. I I'll prefer that. But it was it was kind of fun. It was good to see. Um, I did terribly, but I'm I'm normally So, we both did fair they Max was just like on another level.

40:43 Yeah, Max. Well done. That's why he wanted to play that game. They crushed us. But then Max was kind enough to show us the Fellowship of the Ring trick. Yes, we have a copy of somewhere around here. Yeah, this was actually it was actually here. I did only manage um Asmoodi um kindly sent us a copy uh just before Arrogate. So I did manage to learn the rules but we didn't get to play. We didn't get to play. Oh, we did play with Max. We played a few couple of scenarios and I think it's bloody great and we going to do some proper content about it is uh is if if you love the crew and uh you are a fan of Lord of the Rings, this might be your next favorite game. It's really good. It takes those elements from the crew and just brings them to another level in a in a fantastic way with a beautiful stunning production. Yeah. cool ideas in there as well. And it's not based, if you're an Arcore fan, it's not based on the movie, it's based on the books. So, you're going to have even more, but you're going to flex about I know this character, you know. Um but yeah, it's in in premise is still a um trick taking but each player around the table will play a specific character that for example no spoilers cuz there are secret things that going on to in the game but the very start of the game you will will start with Frodo with Bilbo Baggin with Pippin and with Gandalf that is the kind

42:15 of like the first and each one will have to win a different condition condition of winning. So, some will need to win a certain suit. Some will need to win the less trick. Some will need to win a certain number. Um, and the games will always throw um each chapter you going to go forwards. You take more cards from the box that's going to add difficulties or mechanisms to things. But again, we'll talk about that game. Um, we will definitely do something on that cuz I really, really liked it. So, uh, thank you Max and Fay for hanging out with us from, um, uh, Board Runner. So, on Instagram, Board Runner, um, have a look. He's a lovely chat. Lovely to meet you. And, um, yeah, and that was the, then we were on a train back down on the coast. No games on the way home cuz we were both completely dead. Yeah. I Yeah.

43:10 I was like, when the game compiled, he went, "Uh, I'd rather not." No, I I'll literally like I got to pick my Edwards and I crawl up on my seat and just like sleep till till we got back on the coast. That's okay. Um yeah, that that was um a long um way home. Yeah, that was it. That was was fantastic show. Uh yeah, let's do a final final thoughts and um yeah, let's go. Let's do that. So Matt, that was our first Aircon. What were your final thoughts on the show? I can't wait for next year. Ah, you can't I can't wait for next year. It was uh it was great. Uh it was lovely to see so many people's playing games. It was less uh rushy rushy. Way more chill. Yes.

43:56 Focused on playing. Yeah, more focused on playing. It's it's uh it's because it's not there are a lot of like there are the big players. Zasmodi is there. Shett is there. Dandra is there. There's a lot of like big big big stuff. Uh but um but it's not that crowded like UKG OPIO where you need to mosh pit. You can lovely walk around tons of room tons of table. You can speak with all the people from the this or that um publisher or all the demo area were were really lovely. But yeah um what do you think about aircon in in general? Did you enjoyed it? It's I really did. I think aircon is the board gamers con. So this is the board gamers board game con where if you want to go to a show and play a ton of stuff yeah that is the right place that's you can kind of do it at UKG not really you don't you cannot do it at spiel but you can do this at air yeah it's focused on the games the library is such an amazing thing there uh that it's so easy to use scan the game out scan it back in using the thing that you sign up for uh on your phone and uh rent one of these these amazing games and just hang out or buy something new, support an independent publisher, go and play it. Uh you've got a great game system, buddy system, so people can come and play with you. He was. Yeah, it's amazing. Such a great great thing to go and play. Was so amazing to see so many of those like big scary games on the table with people just like joining together and playing like some amazing

45:28 things. But it it was it was such so so lovely and heartwarming to to see. Yeah, definitely. That that was absolutely great. Uh there was a beer van inside the convention that made our life back there. That was amazing. Yeah, it was really nice. I had a great time and I will certainly we we'll be going back for sure. Yes, we'll definitely go for 2025. We can't wait. And um yeah, and if you can't wait to see more of our content, then maybe you should consider hit the subscribe button. Hitting the subscribe button or indeed checking out the rest of our content. And if you like the idea of me and Matt going around to these cool places and doing stuff like that, then well, if you would like, there is the Patreon as well where you can check out some exclusive content, some shackles and and yeah, buying us a coffee cuz at the end of the day, yeah, it's just a coffee. It's just a coffee for us is a is a big thing for us is a big deal. Exactly. We get to do more of this for you. You should check out the rest of our videos as said and we're going to catch you at the next one.

46:29 Ciao. What's the pink game we'll use for you and me? What's the pink? Here's what you should play and see.