Kicking Kickstarter to the Curb?

Joe Mahaffey: Hello and welcome back to another edition of Lay It on the Table, the Southern Board Game Podcast with the accent on Southern. As per usual, I am one of your hosts, Joe Mahaffey, and of course always.

 

James Engelhardt: James Englehart here in the other chair. Good to see you again, Joe.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Good to see you, James. Here we are on September 20th?

 

James Engelhardt: Twentieth, yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: 20th. We're coming up on the first day of fall. And I gotta tell you, it does not feel like fall outside in

 

James Engelhardt: yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: any way, shape, or form. I think we saw, although we did see 65 as a a morning low this week. But

 

James Engelhardt: okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it was also 98 on Friday.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, there's that.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, so I'm not really. Really hopeful. Although I did see a nice little, you know, winter forecast last night from Ryan Hall Yall, my favorite YouTube weather person,

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: who said that our part of the country

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: might have that perfect setup for more of the snowy kind of material this year. Now, obviously,

 

James Engelhardt: that'd be awesome.

 

Joe Mahaffey: there's no prediction yet just because it's too soon, but the whole favorability of an El Nino and the

 

James Engelhardt: I know.

 

Joe Mahaffey: moisture in the cold air, we might just have those opportunities present themselves. Which

 

James Engelhardt: Well that would be lovely.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I enjoyed it this past year. I would not mind it again. But

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: but there you go. But you know what? We're not a weather podcast.

 

James Engelhardt: We are not.

 

Joe Mahaffey: No, we are a board game podcast. And it's been a couple of weeks since we've been together. Last time we were together we had Jamie Stegmeier with us and that was a

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Conversation number two with him. And I think he's willing to come back. I don't know if you saw that we are officially on the Stonemeyer Games website as ThingsWe Like.

 

James Engelhardt: I know, I thought that was lovely. That was really good.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I think that's pretty darn cool.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And we appreciate Jamie for for giving us that kind of kind of a shout out. Okay, it's time

 

James Engelhardt: Yes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: to lay some board game news on the table. James, why don't you start?

 

James Engelhardt: Do it. So well, I I'll start with just stay with Stegmeyer for j for a second. Because he has his own podcast, Positively Gaming. And this past week, it's like I think it was like Thursday, he revealed an upcoming Stonemaier game. He didn't say the name on the audio feed, so you're just listening to the podcast, you didn't see it. But you can see the box on YouTube, and it is the the name of the game is Braided Skies. It'll be all the big announcements will be out this week, after the 20th. So it's based on Andrew Bosley's Smoking Bones World and seems to be a collaboration with Bosley's Wits End Studio. So don't know much more than that, just that we should be looking for a new Stonemeyer game announcement this week, and that should be it. It looks pretty fun. It looks it's beautiful art. Bosley is the artist as well, and it's just it's really quite lovely.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, I've already laid down the marker that I you know, with both Jamie and Frank that I just buy their stuff. You know. I

 

James Engelhardt: Right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: mean Fer first of all, Jamie got me to become a champion and you know, so now you have to buy it because you get the discounts. Even if you keep

 

James Engelhardt: Yes, right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it even if you keep it in the shrink wrap, like that one game right there that's above my head that's shrink wrap, obviously, by the way, the glare is hitting it. That's actually Trailblazers. I just haven't opened it yet. anyway.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep, yep. That sort of thing happens. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, I want to start with a story that may be bigger than any one game

 

James Engelhardt: yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: publisher. the changing state of board game crowdfunding.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So CMON is says it's facing what it calls a prolonged structural downturn in the tabletop

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: industry and is looking for as much as 17.5 million in outside

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: investment. Now This comes after pretty signific some pretty significant changes at C-Mon. The company has reduced its workforce. It's stopped

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: launching new crowdfunding campaigns and sold some major properties, including Zombicide,

 

James Engelhardt: Uh-huh.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Blood Rage, Cthulhu, Death May Die. Meanwhile,

 

James Engelhardt: Big chunky ones.

 

Joe Mahaffey: the company still has a substantial backlog of crowdfunding projects to fulfill. And C-Mon isn't the only publisher facing questions from crowdfunding backers. Now,

 

James Engelhardt: It is not.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Steamforged Games has also been getting criticism from backers of several outstanding campaigns over communication and fulfillment while the company puts more resources behind wait for it or machine.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Now, taken together, I think these stories raise a very interesting question. Are we reaching the end of giant, ultra expensive Kickstarter board games?

 

James Engelhardt: Would not be surprised. and I mean, that's a lot of plastic. Cost of oil is way up. and I I don't know. I feel like in a world where trick-taking games have taken over, maybe j I know, in a world,

 

Joe Mahaffey: It'll work.

 

James Engelhardt: maybe we don't maybe the appetite for that sort of giant chunks of plastic moving around on a table has slipped a bit. And I, for one, would be okay with that.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, you know, as as somebody who has had an impulse problem with Kickstarter. And I actually have a Steam Forged game. I ended up backing the Elden Ring thing after I went back and forth, back and forth. And I have it. And it is a lot of plastic. And

 

James Engelhardt: Okay, good. Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I thought about trying to sell it. I did see that it's in the retail. Version now. I mean, there are retail versions out there, so that kind of makes it difficult because I don't know how people are, unless you're just a collector.

 

James Engelhardt: Right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it is still in the shrink craft, though. I

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: mean, it's you know, it's still in the boxes that it came in, so I could sell it. But that being being that as it may, I also had a backed a crowd, I I backed one from Night Models

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: that was a Batman Escape from Arkham. Still haven't seen it.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And not really sure I'm ever gonna see it. So, and you know, hey, those that that's the risk you take.

 

James Engelhardt: It's not a pre order, right?

 

Joe Mahaffey: Kickstarter is a little bit like Vegas. Sometimes you

 

James Engelhardt: Ha ha ha.

 

Joe Mahaffey: win, sometimes the house wins.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: but I think that. You know, these organizations, they start with a big game, they add miniatures, they add all the expansions, they have all the Kickstarter exclusive. they unlock a mountain of stretch goals. And before

 

James Engelhardt: They do.

 

Joe Mahaffey: you know it, that $100 game has become three to four hundred bucks on an all-in pledge.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And then you wait. Sometimes a year, sometimes two, maybe longer. I'm talking to you night models.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And then since all that You know, there is a rising manufacturing cost and shipping. And a lot of people I think are saying, I'm gonna wait for retail. So I don't know. I think I don't I I don't think crowdfunding's going anywhere, but I do think that the the monstrosity is gonna change. 'Cause I mean, I think about, you know, just the backing that we did with Frank on Isla Penguins. I mean, even with the all in pledge, it was a reasonable price. And the only way it was going to cost you more is if, well, I don't have all the other Frank West games, and so I want to get the rest of the cats and the the Emberleafs and all those other things that

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: that I don't have and because I'm a completionist, you know, that I think is okay. But but there's some interesting ones out there. I mean, I I looked at Professor Dungeon Master's Deathbringer.

 

James Engelhardt: okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I don't know. I don't think it's on Kickstarter. There's it's on one of the Kickstarter, it's on one of the crowdfunding sites.

 

James Engelhardt: Right, game founder, somebody, right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. And I just I just no I didn't need it.

 

James Engelhardt: Right, that makes sense.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Now part of it is I don't buy a lot of D property or five, you know, RPG properties on Kickstarter because I generally like when we do it to kind of make up our own story.

 

James Engelhardt: Yes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: The exception of that is I got the the critical role one. Yeah,

 

James Engelhardt: Okay. yeah yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I got that. And I got the Shadow Dark because it was more traditional D D. And of course I got the Monty Python.

 

James Engelhardt: Well, because you got it.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, holy grail version. So anyway.

 

James Engelhardt: Exactly. Well and I think I mean I know Flat Out Games has you know another game in their kind of Cascadia Calico

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: kind of puzzly ones. that's coming to crowdfunding. And that feels like the like it's a company that doesn't have to have a million stretch goals. The game itself is probably going to be fully baked or very close to it, by the time it goes up. And you have a reasonable expectation for a smaller game to like see it in a year or so. and I'm have kept myself to those kind of projects for a while. I was never gonna go in and on a C Mon anyway, but so I don't know, and I think those people are still going strong. People like Flat Out and so on, yeah. Yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Hundred percent. So you just want to say, come on, Simon? There we go.

 

James Engelhardt: Come on, Simon. Cool mini or not, yes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: yeah, there you go. One more thing, news wise.

 

James Engelhardt: Yes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Pax unplugged is headed to Houston.

 

James Engelhardt: that's right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: There'll be a second Paxton Unplugged convention. It's it's coming to Houston in June through June twenty fifth or June twenty seventh of twenty twenty

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: seven at the George R. Brown Convention Center. And it's not replacing the Philadelphia event.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. It is not.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So it's just gonna be a southern unplugged. So

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. And I mean when's the when's the Philly one?

 

Joe Mahaffey: I believe that is in December.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, see that's the thing, everyone wants to go to Philly in December, right? I think they should swap these. The Philly one in summer. I was gonna say, put the put

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, well just like just like you want to go to Houston in June. Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: the Philly one in June and the the Houston in December, that's what you. But also I think that programming is pretty close to origins. and I think they're it's gonna shift closer to origin. Yeah, so that's gonna be

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. You you got a lot. You got

 

James Engelhardt: an interesting tension.

 

Joe Mahaffey: You've got Gen Con Origins, Pacts Unplugged, Dice Tower Events, Essen, and a bunch of other regional stuff kind of hitting in the same time. So competing for the dollar. I think but at the same time, you know, going to Gen Con is sort of like going to Comic Con for the board gamer, right?

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And like when we go to when like when I go to Mythicon locally, it's because, well, it's local.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: You know, it's it's not a it's not a heavy lift. but some of these others, you know, if like, I don't know if I could do Gen Con and all these others and yada yada. And then you gotta

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: add all the ham radio cons. Or not. Or not.

 

James Engelhardt: Or not. So the other the other piece that I was looking at, because you had you had talked about D D and other RPGs in terms of sort of jumping a little bit into the with the crowdfunding, but I found this piece from Fortune Business Insights that global tabletop role playing games are expected to like double in terms of market from two and a half to five point three billion dollars by twenty thirty four. So that was amazing. A doubling in what, eight years? That's astonishing. And that's what this is this is fortune business. This is not like you know, Watsi saying, no, no, we're gonna, you know, kill it. this is a disinterested

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, I th I

 

James Engelhardt: third party.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I think it's in and no, I I'm not terribly surprised by that because you know, think about the accelerant that COVID poured on it. And

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm. Yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: then think about the additional accelerant of choices that the O the OGL poured on it. We talked about that a couple of years ago.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And I think that it is I I don't see it Dying, I see it evolving. And I I I

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: you know, and the fact that Hasbro's out on their apology tour right now for D, I just don't think it's ever gonna I think it's gonna continue to evolve. I think it'll be different. I think because you know, there's there's a lot more tools that make it easier to do it remotely. like we did, because

 

James Engelhardt: Yes. Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: you live someplace else than I do and your daughter lives someplace else from both of us.

 

James Engelhardt: All right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: and I think that just more, you know, collaborative tools that make it possible and make it interesting. and I continue to, you know, obviously we've talked a lot about what Hasbro's trying to do with what was what was euphemistically known as D and D Beyond.

 

James Engelhardt: Yes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: but I continue to maintain my role twenty subscription and it has gotten far more technology useful. across multiple platforms, meaning a a couple of multiple properties, I should say. And they continue to what I like about what they're doing is they continue to enhance the experience and available of in availability of information,

 

James Engelhardt: Yes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: but they don't seem to compromise by taking you out of the story to do it, if that makes

 

James Engelhardt: Right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: sense.

 

James Engelhardt: Yes. I mean the the searchable across volumes and volumes and volumes of books is fantastic. I mean that alone is

 

Joe Mahaffey: And as a GM, it's very helpful to have that at your fingertips when, you know,

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: somebody makes a choice you weren't expecting.

 

James Engelhardt: I said don't go into it.

 

Joe Mahaffey: No, I really want to talk to the barmaid, but the guy in the corner. No, no, no. Tell me about you, Schmir Schmirple. Sorry, that's

 

James Engelhardt: No, the guy the guy in the corner. The guy in the corner. Yes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: a that's a riff. There's Viva Viva La Dirt League has their

 

James Engelhardt: okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: YouTube channel and they do all these things about, you know, D D and NPCs and stuff. And there's this whole thing where the party goes into the tavern and they have the shadowy character who's clearly this you know, warlock that they're there to see. But the entire party's interested in the the barmaid.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, see exactly.

 

Joe Mahaffey: It's like, what about the guy at the corner? No, no, no, no. Tell me

 

James Engelhardt: No no no.

 

Joe Mahaffey: about I you could be that person. it's just really I love their stuff. They're very they're very funny. They're very funny. Anyway, sorry, didn't mean to shame shameless blood.

 

James Engelhardt: This is good. This is good. Hmm. Yep. No, no, I and I'm just I am again, you know, we sometimes talk about this. People of a certain age were like, my god, I had who would have known back when I was a kid playing in my friend Andy Gunderson's basement that this would be a five billion dollar industry and people would just be talking about it and going to giant conventions and yeah. It's just fant No.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Hundred percent. Andy Gunderson, not a sponsor, by the way. Just wanna let you know that. Just in case you know, just in case.

 

James Engelhardt: Or an it just yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, no, but it was so I I found that just sort of astonishing and delightful. that there's clearly a lot of growth, a lot of interest, and that's just gonna keep going.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, I'm gonna imagine also, I mean, you know, I'm gonna classify you as a creative. I mean, the fact that there's venues for creators to create. Which by

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: the way, I ordered your book. It was supposed to be

 

James Engelhardt: Yay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: the end of August. It's September. Where's the book?

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, I know, right? It's like it's as bad as crowdfunding. We're looking at a yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I I was gonna say that, but that's my problem. So that's that was see you the whole thing was for this point.

 

James Engelhardt: Just just to yeah, just to ride me and my publisher there.

 

Joe Mahaffey: 'Cause I gotta figure out how to work it into my next campaign as a piece of crap that people find in the library.

 

James Engelhardt: Ha ha Still a fun story. I just yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Just kidding. Just kidding. Well, I wish I had some games to talk about, but I don't. But I can tell you but I can tell you this, yes, yes.

 

James Engelhardt: But maybe, maybe soon? excellent.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So we finally got enough of the house put back together that the game room no longer looks like a shit show

 

James Engelhardt: Cool.

 

Joe Mahaffey: and you have access to the table.

 

James Engelhardt: Awesome.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And the games are organized. The things that have come in that were in boxes are out of the boxes and they're on the shelf. Some are still in shrink wrap.

 

James Engelhardt: So you know.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So Dale and I are gonna hit the game. We have an appointment today at four o'clock Eastern Standard Time, well, daylight time, to play a game. Don't know what we're gonna play. I said wingspan

 

James Engelhardt: Awesome.

 

Joe Mahaffey: pocket. She says, Let's play something else.

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So I'm like, Duel of Malok. And she's like, What is that? I'm like

 

James Engelhardt: Just going down all the new Stonewai releases.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Just going down all the new ones. Yeah. I mean, you know, we could I I kind of feel like since it's been a hot minute since we've played, we should probably play something that we know.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And I thought at least Wingspan Pocket would be what we know as adjacent. But it is

 

James Engelhardt: yeah. Solid game too. Yeah, yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: a yeah, so I'm just, you know, I'm thinking about that. But we'll find out. We are gonna find out later today what we play. And the next time I will tell you what we have not only played today, but because we're back in that mode. We will be playing more often. Now,

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I still have my distraction of I am in my last CW Academy class. So CW for the uninitiated is Morse code. this time

 

James Engelhardt: Yep, dots and dashes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: last year I started the beginner class with CW Academy. it went from September to October. Then I came back in in January and I did the foundation class.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Which was another two months. And then in May, I did the intermediate class. And now I'm in the advanced class. And they they're talking about an advanced advanced, but I think after the advanced, I'll be I'll be good. I'm

 

James Engelhardt: You'll be as advanced as you want to be, yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I'm getting to close to like twenty-five words a minute.

 

James Engelhardt: Okay, wow.

 

Joe Mahaffey: which is kind of cool.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it helps that we're I largely do parks on the air or POTA as it is known, and

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it's a pretty rote kind of thing. You know, it's like there's not a lot of surprises. Like nobody's gonna say Mississippi in the middle of it. Which by the way, I have learned to Morse code Mississippi because it's a great way to learn dits and doh's.

 

James Engelhardt: Bet.

 

Joe Mahaffey: but more importantly, the other thing that has sucked up a lot of the air out of my room here lately

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: is what's happening this Wednesday.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. What is happening this Wednesday, sir?

 

Joe Mahaffey: So this Wednesday, my club, W4BFB, which is also known as the Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society, is supporting

 

James Engelhardt: All right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Levine Children's Hospital as a part of the Atrium Healthcare system. and in partnership with Seacrest Studios, yes, that's the same Ryan Seacrest. he has a foundation that puts these studios in a bunch of children's hospitals and Levine Children's just happens to be one. We are going to be doing an activation for the kids with the International Space Station.

 

James Engelhardt: That's so cool.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So they're gonna get to talk to an astronaut who's sitting up on the International Space Station at twelve fifty-one p.m. on Wednesday. They're gonna have a window of about twelve minutes. Yeah, it moves,

 

James Engelhardt: man. It moves fast, does the yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it does move fast. Now We were hoping to be able to do this with our radios in Charlotte pointed at the sky. But it it's all a scheduling thing. And that's what ARIS works very closely with NASA to sort these things out. It also has to do with the astronaut schedules, et cetera. So we're actually gonna we're still gonna do it, but it's gonna be we're gonna be leveraging a telebridge between us and Belgium. And Belgium's gonna do the the interchange, but we'll be there with our We'll be using our

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: radios. We're gonna set up actually we're gonna set up a special net. We're gonna let the kids get on the air and actually do some talking after the astronauts. So it's gonna be a pretty cool event. And I'm I'm really kinda hoping it's the first of many opportunities to go to the hospital and share the radio with the kids because we were up there a week ago or so and the kids that were able to attend and got on the radio, it was just really, really cool.

 

James Engelhardt: No, that's awesome.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So anyway, got that coming up this week.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. That should be super fun. And I'm keen to hear how that all turns out and how it all works and what the kids' response to it well will be, was.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, well, what's gonna be really cool about it is now it's it's a children's hospital. Normally

 

James Engelhardt: Right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: normally they do this with a school. And

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: so this has been sort of an of an abbreviated schedule. So without going on too long about it, eventually there will be content that is gonna be on the ARIS YouTube page.

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: As you can imagine, any of the kids that are involved, there have to be releases. The hospital and secret studios will have to Go through the content and perhaps make some edits, maybe blur, you know. It's and it's very appropriate. I mean, we we you know, these kids are in a children's hospital.

 

James Engelhardt: Right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: They have HIPAA rights.

 

James Engelhardt: Indeed.

 

Joe Mahaffey: and and so, you know, we don't we don't know what that's gonna look like quite yet.

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: But but we're pretty excited about it nonetheless. Yeah. Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: That is exciting. And it'll be a thrill no matter what happens. I mean, for the kids to be able to talk to space, that's awesome. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Hundred percent. And I get to see Sprout.

 

James Engelhardt: And what is sprout?

 

Joe Mahaffey: Sprout is the Levine Children's Hospital mascot. And he is a lovely puppy dog. And he's sort of the you know, the mascot. And the the person we're working with in the studio, it's it's her dog. And so it's kind of fun to to do that. And

 

James Engelhardt: well that's sweet. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: you know, I I do have the contact, by the way, for your friend at the Spiel Foundation. So

 

James Engelhardt: good, good, good, yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: we can We talk about that later. Maybe when we have him on.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. Awesome. Yeah, perfect.

 

Joe Mahaffey: If he's willing to come on.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah. Yeah, we'll make this work. Yes. All right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Okay. So that's why I got no games to talk about. But I did talk about radio.

 

James Engelhardt: So I have had some games to talk about. So

 

Joe Mahaffey: I figured you did.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah, and these are, I think, I've got a couple that are arranged a around behind me there. these are all new games. These are good They made their way home from Gen Con, so I've talked about them a little bit in the past. the first one I want to talk about is Graylon, which is over here. Greylon. this is should be available now. This is from Sorry, we are French, which is a fantastic name for a

 

Joe Mahaffey: Zootalar.

 

James Engelhardt: Zidaler. Yes, Sari We Are French. And Pandosaurus, which doesn't have any accent with it whatsoever. So so this is designed by William Atya, who also brought us Kalus. art by Ulrich Mace and David Sitbon, or Cibon, who can tell? There's a lot of lot of French here.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Now is Caleb the official Klingon spelling? Okay, just checking.

 

James Engelhardt: Yes. So Greyloon is mostly it's a worker placement game with some auction stuff and some point-to-point movement, which is kind of so there's a bunch of stuff all sort of rolled up in there. overall you're something like a like a high-level DD character sending minions out to get money and leverage village buildings like taverns. More about taverns later. then the barmaids, very things. so buy items, recruit more minions, and then you're also sending an adventurer out into the Local area, which is the point-to-point movement, you know, to have adventures. So and then also speaking of seasons, each round is a year. So the four phases are also seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall. Fall is just upkeep and income. Winter resets the play area. So it's just, you know, you're doing accounting. And then the fun stuff is spring and summer when you take lots of little bitty turns. yeah, and the the key thing is this: there's a village. Which is the it which is where you go to the village, of course, right? it's a three by three grid of square cards that are either buildings, items, or so one of the items you can get is a horse, which I think is fantastic. The horse's name is Tommy. It just says Tommy, and there's horse. It's awesome. and then the people you can recruit. and all of these things give you points or f other stuff for people that help you break the rules very lightly, right, in various favorable ways. the So that but how you get the cards is the fun bit. So you bid on the cards by placing a worker between any two of them.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Okay.

 

James Engelhardt: And so that's one thing that you can do. And then you either there's also an event that happens once every year, and you can either go there or you can just move into the summer phase. So not everybody, sort of like Everdell, some will be in summer, some will be in spring, until everybody sinks up in fall. The event gives you different stuff. Moving into summer immediately lets you take a summer action. And and this is what the game really starts to pick up. and we're gonna go back to that village grid. When you take a worker off, you buy the atom or buy the buy one of the two items that it was in next to, or recruit that villager. So you get another

 

Joe Mahaffey: Right.

 

James Engelhardt: worker, which you can use later in the same season, or use that building. The trick is most of these cards have a an initial price. And then you pay an extra gold for every other meeple that's around that card. So you either decide to buy the card for all the extra, or you sort of abandon the card but get money for all of those other meeples. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Interesting. Yeah, I'm looking at I'm looking at it right now. It's it's f the artwork is beautiful. And I love

 

James Engelhardt: yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: the the the the peep the the meeples. Is that in every

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm. they're super fun.

 

Joe Mahaffey: is that a special edition or is that in every copy?

 

James Engelhardt: No, I think that's that's just all of them. so then there's another chance to go encountering, which is where you're getting the movement again. You're sending your guy out to encounter cards that give you stuff if you match the requirements. If you fulfill the card, it comes back to your board and becomes the stories, and then you want to go to the tavern to tell the stories to get more stuff. So that's always fun. but so why do we have Greylone? Because Spirium. Spirium was a fine game, people liked it. But this takes me back to the difference between a game called Among the Stars and Fields of Green. Among the Stars was a game about laying out cards to build a space station. And some kinds of resources needed to be close to other cards that needed that resource, but the other resource could be farther away, and it's a science fiction world, and the terms are made up, and you have no idea what needed to go where. Fields of Green Change the setting from space to farming, and suddenly you know that water is hard to transport, so you have to have stuff close to the water source, and hey, you can just toss it onto a truck and move it. And Spirium is a steampunk sort of thing with lots of weird names for stuff. And Greyloon, you're just like, it's a medieval fantasy setting. I know what this is. I'm gonna go to the tavern to turn this into that, or whatever. so it just I think. It just makes sense in the ways that, like, gonna turn this into a farm makes more sense. the the challenge for anybody who picks up this game though is the rulebook. it's so you learn, for example, this is one of my favorites, that you can use a potion as many times you can use as use as many potions as you want on a turn. You learn this in a paragraph describing how one particular companion works. So not in the section explaining about items. Not in another potion. This so this is yeah. also this game is deeply iconographic, and they were like, no, you don't need a guide to icons. You see how you can read all the cards and figure them out. And people are like, no. No, that's not. It's 2026, you don't do that. Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So we talk a lot about this. Now I'm just curious.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Since this is sorry we are friends. I I assume it was designed in France or no? So is this

 

James Engelhardt: Yes. Yep. So originally yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: a translation issue with the book?

 

James Engelhardt: Perhaps there's a bit of that. There's a bit of cultural exchange because people were coming back from Gen Con and trying to play it and saying, Hey, I've got this question. Could you could you, you know, do this for us? And the people were like, no, the stuff is there. We don't we don't need to do this. William Adia, on the other hand, was very active and like explaining to people, no, no, no, you're you're correct or you're, you know. but there was enough pressure that there's now an official icon guide from sorry,

 

Joe Mahaffey: Okay.

 

James Engelhardt: we are French and Pandasaurus up on BGG. So that was good. and they're also supposed to be updating their rule book and posting a PDF of that as well so that it's a little more coherent. so but yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: This is why I am I'm I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again. This is why I'm a big fan of Google's notebook LM.

 

James Engelhardt: Right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Because you can upload those things and just ask the LLM questions, but you're not giving away your personal information. So I like that. So I have all a lot of my I have all the games that have PDFs that have questionable rule books that way. Just saves you time at the table.

 

James Engelhardt: And there's a a new one called table coach that leverages LLMs for exactly this kind of thing as well. yeah,

 

Joe Mahaffey: wow, I'll check that out.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah. but so once you fight your way through the rulebook, the core loop is quick, clear, clean. We were turning the turns were coming around the table really quickly. you have to keep track of some of the things that your companions and items do, like you've got a little little tableau of stuff and like, okay, this one, this item lets me do this, and then this companion lets me do that. And so I can do something else over here. so it's got some nice combos and that kind of thing that feel really good. but I'm a little bit concerned that trying you by the time you get to the table, having got through the rule book, you're like, my God, is it really worth it? And I hope people s hang with it longer than that.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, it looks very interesting. I

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: mean, I was intrigued until you said that the rule books were questionable.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, it is a challenge. yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: But you know what? I own and have played Santa Monica.

 

James Engelhardt: So there you go.

 

Joe Mahaffey: That's the crappiest rule book I've ever seen.

 

James Engelhardt: There's a yeah. So, I mean, and that's the thing. You look at it and go, no, it's gonna be one of those situations. So yeah. I think it's a it's I I th my understanding is that Spirium had mostly the the sort of village thing that you were playing with. And so this adventuring thing is a whole new system that they've added. I like it. It feels very, you know, my Hero is going out to encounter stuff and try to do things and so and then yeah, you have to go, you get your untold stories, then take them back, then have to go to the tavern and tell the stories. And the better your story is from one to three, the more good stuff you get. I think that's hilarious too. you can go and get a story that gives you maybe like two points, like flat out, but it's like you met some sheep, and that story sucks. So it's story strength of zero. It's really quite hilarious. Like as they go up like I'm in a bear, that was a story of two. Excellent. So yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, it sounds like an interesting game. I'll have to check

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it out. I'll have to check it out.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, give give it a look. so last night, also new, Rhinelander from 2026, originally published in 1999. this is designed by writer Kenizia, who's been around for, of course, since 1999. and this is the new version from 25th, there it is over there, 25th Century Games. artwork this time by Ian O'Toole, who is fantastic for also making things look Coherent and everything's in the right place. This one, really compact. It's a kind of an abstract area majority area influence driven by cards. it's a deck of cards, one to 54 plus a joker, which is just a reshuffle card. You get your hand of cards, you play one down, and you put a little influence token. You're you're you've got Two sides. You've got a river sneaking through this. This is the Horine River Valley. You've got the river snaking through. You've got land on either side. You play your influence onto one of the numbered the the river of space is going to be numbered. You play it to one of the land spots on either side. you're trying to put if you get two adjacent spaces with your influence, you can put a duke down and start a duchy. We kept singing past the duchy all night long. Yep. Yep, yep. yes, that's right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Okay, I can see that that yep, mm-hmm on the left hand side, right? Yes. Just wanna make sure.

 

James Engelhardt: Yes, always, yes. And if someone gets more influence next to you, you lose the Duke and the Duchy, your influence stays out there, but the Duke comes back, hopefully, you get some points out of that. There are randomly distributed landmarks that give you points or influence or control the church. The church lets you break the rules a bit because churches are like that. You can also just slough a card to reinforce one of your already established areas of influence. You play until one person runs out of influence. And you can either stop right there, as the rules say, because the eighteenth century was unfair, or you can continue around with equal turns because the twenty-first century, I think, kind of believes in balance. yeah, yeah. it's I'm not very good apparently at this sort of game, but the game moves quickly. We usually at my table on game nights, we're there all night and people are checking in to see when we're going to be done. We played this game twice and got a game of scout in afterwards, so it

 

Joe Mahaffey: Okay.

 

James Engelhardt: moved. We had four people. I think having more people lets you get into each other's faces a little more and kind of negotiate this stuff, which again I was not good at, but really smooth, very quick. Yes sir.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well let me ask you a couple of questions about it. Number one, the artwork kind of reminds me of Carcassonne.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah, that makes sense.

 

Joe Mahaffey: but I

 

James Engelhardt: I mean it's it's highly abstracted, very Kenizia, yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: But it also when I look at the box, and and of course I'm looking at it on BGG, so it's a little deceptive, it looks like

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it's the same size as like a canvas.

 

James Engelhardt: It's a little bit bigger. A little bit bigger than that. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Maybe it's a little bit Okay. Just trying to get a sense of scale. It's a it's a it's a folded twice board.

 

James Engelhardt: It yeah, it's quarters. So I mean yeah, yeah, yeah. Folded, yep. Yep. Sure, yep, yep, yeah, that's what it is. Yes,

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Hold it twice. quarters. Okay, we'll call fine. Fractions, sure.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah. So yeah, and and I mean it's funny too, because like Graylin has this great big game in this fairly modest little box, which I really admired about that too. the I'm trying to think what's yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: It's fine. I was just looking at it, I was kinda curious about it. But no, the artwork's I you're right, the be the artwork is beautiful and the way that the river flows through it is the game board. I mean it's it's very

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it also looks kind of vagusy. Red twenty three please.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Well and yeah. And it's someone describes it as like acquire without with with a lot less mathiness, and I think that's probably pretty fair.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Math is hard.

 

James Engelhardt: and particularly if you're trying to like, okay, so if I have this if I the second controlling and not the first and my piece gets acquired, and I split the stock and yeah, so so this is not that there's a little you have to kind of figure out, okay, if there's a whole bunch of duchies that get kind of pulled together, who keeps control of it and that kind of thing. but by the time we had gotten halfway through the first game, it was pretty pretty clear to everybody what we were supposed to be doing. But again, I did very poorly. It was pretty funny.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Noted. Noted.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: We will we will encourage Laura to do all the negotiating for you going forward. Yes.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Wait, d don't you think you should put another guy out there? Like I I don't know, maybe. Yeah. So that was pretty fun. and another real new one, and this is and the these descriptions get shorter and shorter as we go here. This is

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: size-wise, which I think is up over there.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Stealing fonts from Schoolhouse Rock? Yeah. No, you have to say indubitably. There you

 

James Engelhardt: Indeed. yep. Indubitably. Yes.

 

Joe Mahaffey: go.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. yeah. so this is from a newish game company called Gamehead, that grew out of gamer mats. They used to do gamer mats, now they're gamehead. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Hence the name.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. So so Paul Solomon of the Decision Space podcast, and also the designer of Honey Buzz and Stamp Swap. he's

 

Joe Mahaffey: yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: he's yep, one of the guys who's running Game Head there. Scott Brady is the designer. He did boob. Yeah, exactly. And then Arch,

 

Joe Mahaffey: We love boob. I mean

 

James Engelhardt: Art by Serge Seidelitz, which again had spent clearly spent his youth watching TV on Saturday morning. Yeah. yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Mm-hmm. Yeah, a hundred percent.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. And so, and the art has almost nothing to do with the inside. I think they just kind of use fonts on things. So this is a party game. there

 

Joe Mahaffey: I'm I'm looking at the tokens too. It looks like that guy could be eating a Tootsie roll pop. Just saying. Yeah. Yes.

 

James Engelhardt: It is yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the the wise owl there. Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. yeah, so it is a you've got a bunch of cards. and as you flip one over, the other one that's still face up tells you what number so you've got a list like six objects. The one that's still face down has a number on it, so you pick object number four or five, whatever. everybody has a like a short rope with a sliding bead on it and a ring on one end of the rope. and you answer random questions like, you know, how Big as a mermaid's tail, right? So something you could get something absurd. what's the size? Oops, what's the size of a bicycle seat? Like, so a little more a real life kind of a thing.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Okay.

 

James Engelhardt: what's the size of like the size of a bowling pin? Like something, these sorts of stuff. Like you're like, I don't know, how big's a bowling pin? So you slide the bead to where you think it is, and then when everybody is done, you put that little ring on the there's a little spindle. Everybody puts their ring on the spindle, you hold up the spindle, and the person who's the shortest and the longest, those two have to give up one of those owl tokens.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Okay.

 

James Engelhardt: and then the first person to lose all five of their owl tokens ends the game. Most tokens left wins. and but mostly, of course, like many of these games, the point of this is how did why did you think an mermaid's fin is that big? Well, I don't know which fin we were talking about. Or you know, a bowling pin is how big? What Where are you going bowling, right? So

 

Joe Mahaffey: What was the mermaid wearing? And that could have an impact on how big her tail looks? I don't wanna if

 

James Engelhardt: Was? Yeah, yeah. No.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I say that.

 

James Engelhardt: No. So it's fantastic. I mean the basically when the was taught to me at at the booth, the gamehead booth in Gen Con, the guy was like, I'm not gonna teach you. We're just gonna do this. Here's a rope. Here's the question. How big is an airplane window? Go for it. So it's just that quick. and I think it comes with like Eight, I think you can play up to It says how many people you can play, I'm sure it says this someplace. There you go, okay. Yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it says eight. Yeah, it says it says eight says it's three to eight, fifteen to twenty-five, mm well it says three to fifteen to twenty-five feet because they used the wrong

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: punctuation mark there. interesting.

 

James Engelhardt: Well

 

Joe Mahaffey: and it says six plus, which probably means it goes best with six or more people.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Yeah. it's it works brilliantly. I think th you have to have at least three because there has to be one bead in the middle, right? But I think you really want four, five, six plus playing this game.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, that makes sense.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. but super intuitive, basic, yeah, moves really quickly. I think fifteen minutes is if you're twenty five minutes is if you're playing with eight and trying to figure out how to do this. Fifteen sounds about right. You could.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Long as the driver, you know, had somebody do the feeds for him, yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: Ish. Exactly. I wanted to be about the yeah. So

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: what's the size of a smallmouth bass? yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Okay, about that Yeah, that's funny. Now

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah yeah. So but hilarity ensues. It's fantastic for that.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it sounds great. No, it sounds like it sounds like you continue to reap the spoils of Gen Con.

 

James Engelhardt: And yeah, and it's kinda funny, like I They're the new games. Let me see, you know. I think

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: this one is still a little bit lagging behind. I think its big release is gonna be Essen. yeah. Rhinelander

 

Joe Mahaffey: Great gray loon? I think.

 

James Engelhardt: is I don't even know. I think it's think it's out and about. size wise certainly is.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: It's an American company and so yeah. and yeah, I mean it's Yeah, games I'm happy to have and to have played. I highly recommend them all. And particularly

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well

 

James Engelhardt: if you want to win a game, ask me to play Rhinelander with you.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, that that's it. I'm coming down.

 

James Engelhardt: Ha ha ha.

 

Joe Mahaffey: But no, it sounds sounds like it's a good collection. I'm I'm looking forward to digging into some of these. I did pick up when you the one we talked about, I think it was two episodes ago, the Trailblazer, the small one.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I have that one. And I also got the Trailblazer John Muir Trail. So that might be

 

James Engelhardt: Right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: worth taking a look at. There's evidently another, there's already got another, don't know if it's an expansion or just another version of it where It's like Trailblazer different trail. I think it's in Arizona or something. I'd have to go back and take a look.

 

James Engelhardt: Okay. That sounds cool.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it's been a hot minute since I took a look at it. But but yeah, so we'll have to see what we get on the table today and

 

James Engelhardt: Yes. I'm excited for y'all.

 

Joe Mahaffey: if I I don't know if it's my game IQ has dropped.

 

James Engelhardt: Well, give it a shot, see what happens. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: We'll see. We'll see.

 

James Engelhardt: Well and it'll be are y'all playing in the new room or are you back to the old the traditional game spot?

 

Joe Mahaffey: No, no, we'll be in the I would assume we'll be in the original game spot because that's where our game table is. But

 

James Engelhardt: Okay, right on.

 

Joe Mahaffey: plus the new room is still got some work to do.

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, for one thing, my bicycle's in there. Well, I readed this room and I had to move the radios around and then found out that during the twenty four hours of booty, a bike event.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: that my the axle on my bike was beginning to crack. which it should not do.

 

James Engelhardt: No.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I mean, I know I'm a have been a heavier person than I am at the moment, but not enough to break an axle on a bike.

 

James Engelhardt: No doubt.

 

Joe Mahaffey: So but the Trek people are gonna fix it under warranty. So I gotta take it over there.

 

James Engelhardt: this is good.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I'm like Yeah, so I haven't bothered to bring it back out, but it's still in there because I gotta take it over there.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: But, you know, all these first world problems.

 

James Engelhardt: Indeed.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, we've gotten to a stage here in Mecklenburg County where they have finally put a speed limit on the greenways. Twenty twenty miles an hour, which is great because my bike my bike is

 

James Engelhardt: Okay. right.

 

Joe Mahaffey: my bike has never gone over twenty miles an hour. But we

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, your bike is not the issue, yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: but I don't know if you guys have the same problem that we have here in Charlotte.

 

James Engelhardt: Electric bikes or people in golf carts?

 

Joe Mahaffey: teenagers under the age of sixteen whose parents have bought them e-bikes that look a lot like mini bikes. If you grew up in the seventies

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: and you know what that is, but they're e-bikes and you see this cluster of kids. I mean, all they need is like, you know, gang jackets. You know. But there's there's a great video either on next door, Facebook, Instagram, I don't know. That shows the Midhill Police Department in a slow speed chase of this kid on a bicycle.

 

James Engelhardt: Ha ha.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And he's just zigzagging a ray trying to get away. And then I was told somebody by somebody that they know a kid that fell off of his bike and then his somebody ran over his leg with a car. So

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: it's it's it's it's a it's a dangerous thing because these kids think it's freedom, which in a way it is, but they think they can ride on the streets like they're on a motorcycle and they can't. So anyway, I don't know if you guys

 

James Engelhardt: Also true. Yep. and there's a lot,

 

Joe Mahaffey: have that problem.

 

James Engelhardt: right? It's we do. and there's a lot more mass than a regular bike. And so you've the

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: turning and cornering is a whole different thing. So, but but speaking of kids, we are several weeks into my first year writing class doing board games, tabletop games. And this year, this is the first semester I have rigidly banned them from picking up Monopoly or sorry or Uno or something like this and like find something. I also had a student, I think last semester who had said, Hey, what if I found this weird old game and like revived it? And I thought, ooh, this is a fantastic way to change the assignment. So you can either find a a contemporary game that needs that's a little too narrow cast, or find an old game and basically the whole Several students are like pitching to restoration games, right? For their writing assignment. But

 

Joe Mahaffey: That's very cool.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah, and so one of the ones found this game called the Record Game from 1980. It comes in this like yellow gold lame box looking thing, and prominently displayed is that it is endorsed by Kenny Rogers. So that's good. and it has it comes with a record that you can play. That will teach you

 

Joe Mahaffey: Right.

 

James Engelhardt: the rules of the intro game. There are three game modes you can play with this one. There's a two-hour game, there's the four and a half-hour game, and there's the eight-hour game if you're so inclined. Yeah. Yeah. Like, wow. that's whew. Didn't didn't last long, did it? Okay. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well it's it's funny you mentioned that because in my ham club there is a gentleman, his name's Max. he

 

James Engelhardt: Hello, Max.

 

Joe Mahaffey: lives here in Charlotte. Max is from Russia, grew up in Russia. He actually grew up in what we would know from the risk map as the Urals.

 

James Engelhardt: Awesome.

 

Joe Mahaffey: That's the way he explained it to me recently. But he was talking to me

 

James Engelhardt: That's fantastic.

 

Joe Mahaffey: about discovering board games coming from that culture.

 

James Engelhardt: Okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: And I think it might be an interesting topic to maybe invite

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: him on and sort of talk through that because it we talked about how he came to Monopoly and how he came to Risk and how he has come to other board games. He knew about Wingspan. He did not know about the Isle of Cats or Parked

 

James Engelhardt: Huh?

 

Joe Mahaffey: and he has since begun to explore them because h he and his wife like to play board games. So I think that would be an interesting

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: topic at some point, in the future because we, you know, we come at this from a very Western point of view. We come from this

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: from a very American point of view. Obviously we know people from other parts of the world, but, you know, growing up in a part of the world that has had more limits on what you could play, what you could know, yada yada. I think that would be an interesting Interesting thing.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. The the other game one one of my students found, I think 'cause I think you might recognize this one, I don't know, is from the late seventies, Bermuda Triangle.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Are you just calling me old with that statement? I mean, come on. I mean

 

James Engelhardt: no. You graduated ahead of me.

 

Joe Mahaffey: that's true. I just might have been smarter than you. I don't know. I d I doubt that. My

 

James Engelhardt: damn it.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Ph my PhD I used to dig holes with, you know, post. there you go.

 

James Engelhardt: yeah, right. Those are those are good, those are good tools, yeah. but it's it's so you remember like the the for like, I don't know, it felt like six weeks in like eighth grade or something, the Bermuda Triangle was like, yeah. And and then there was yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: yeah. yeah. A hundred percent. No, I totally get it.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. And so there was a game and you are shipping companies and you're moving ships around the outside, but there's this

 

Joe Mahaffey: Vegley.

 

James Engelhardt: there's this storm. There's like a hurricane that's like up on sticks and moving around. Yeah. And it has Yep, and it has magnets in it, and if it goes right over your ship.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yes. Yes. I remember this game. Yep. Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: Pulls it up, yeah. Yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I do remember this game. Now that you now that you've described the core mechanic, I've played this game. I

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: don't know if I owned it or if somebody in my neighborhood owned it, but I have played this game. Wow. Now do you

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my student found this and I was like, my god, how did you how did you track this down?

 

Joe Mahaffey: So they physically brought the game or did they so they physically have the game?

 

James Engelhardt: No, he just was googling around like like what would be a fascinating game and and he's he was aware of restoration

 

Joe Mahaffey: I see. I see.

 

James Engelhardt: games, so he was looking for something that would like appeal to their sensibilities. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Interesting. Yeah, no, I I do recall the game very much. Yeah, 'cause there was that whole period, you know, where there were these different games would come out and, you know, they had these different mechanics where there was mousetrap, I mean that's the most

 

James Engelhardt: Right. I had one bought of the based on the alien movie in close encounters of the fourth kind, right? Third kind, okay, third kind.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Third kind. Third kind. Third kind.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep. And so there was a close encounters game that had dry erase boards and you were marking things or not dry erase boards, it was just plastic with, you know, black crayon things, but yeah. Just wipe off boards, but yeah. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Very cool.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, very toyetic kind of things.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, that's that's the way the gind industry was.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah. So yeah, I thought I would the Bermuda Triangle I thought would be a nice it seemed yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, no, I I love that. I I I'd be curious, you know, if there's if there's somebody's gotta have a copy of that somewhere.

 

James Engelhardt: Well and so Tim who was over last night, I was telling him about this. He's like, I have that game. I'm actually planning to play it on Tuesday night. It's like,

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

 

James Engelhardt: man, okay.

 

Joe Mahaffey: All right. Well, there you go.

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, I'm I'm you know, 'cause those that that's what you had as games,

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: you know, back in those days.

 

James Engelhardt: Well, I mean it it still kind of is in the mass market, right? Like here's a big thing that's going on and they'll push out a game that has something to do with it, right?

 

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, every time we well, you know, we've kind of found ourselves now when we're at a Target or a Barnes Noble. Because you get and Barnes and Noble's really interesting 'cause you really get this juxtaposition of those kinds of games and the kinds of games that we typically talk about. so it's kind of interesting to see it that from that perspective.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm. But like, there are three or four fourth wing games that are out there right now.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Mm-hmm.

 

James Engelhardt: So, you know, if you wanna dragons and that kind of stuff. and so, you know, that's game companies or other companies are gonna find a way to leverage the Zeitgeist.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Hundred percent.

 

James Engelhardt: Yep.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, James, that's all I have to talk about this week.

 

James Engelhardt: That's all I got, Joe.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Well, I look forward for us coming back in a couple of weeks. It will be October.

 

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Maybe hopefully it'll be cooler. And

 

James Engelhardt: That would be good.

 

Joe Mahaffey: I'll have some games talk about and a space station or a moon. Sometimes it's not sometimes it's not a moon, it's a space station. Yeah. Sometimes. Anyway. Well,

 

James Engelhardt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a moon. Yes. Yeah.

 

Joe Mahaffey: with that, I am Joe Mahaffey. I am not bored. I am Gonna be board gaming.

 

James Engelhardt: That's awesome. And I'm James Engelhart Joe, that I hope all you church tiebreakers break your way.

 

Joe Mahaffey: Bye everybody.

 

James Engelhardt: Bye y'all.