The Local Gamestore

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. We are heading into late June, and I am one of your hosts, Joe Mahaffey. And as always, I am joined by my good friend and colleague.

James Engelhardt: James Engelhardt the other co-host, coast host, I don't know where that came from, but there we are. Yeah, from coast to coast.

Joe Mahaffey: We're space ghost to coast. There we go. Well, how are you, James?

James Engelhardt: I'm doing well, sir. Summer heat has ⁓ kind of settled in, so we're all just into that.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, it has. Yeah, it's really hot. We had I'm missing the snow from January.

James Engelhardt: Yes. ⁓ There's a, and then we'd get these random pop-up showers at like 10 minutes of torrential downpour, takes down a couple of trees, the next neighborhood over and then, then it goes up to a thousand percent humidity if we're doing ⁓ Trumpian math. So there you go. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Sure. There we go. Yeah. It's it's it goes up hugely. Yeah. Yes. so I want to take a minute ⁓ and talk about the future of the podcast. That's the new, that's the tagline people put when they're like, ⁓ I have a really dramatic announcement and it turns out to be nothing. Really. Yeah. And I'm gonna say the future of the podcast. Well, as those of you who are listening to this episode will notice that it is episode seven, and you'll probably notice in the catalog that we're missing a few.

James Engelhardt: Hugely, yes. Okay. I feel very dramatized, yeah. Okay.

Joe Mahaffey: And that is because one of us is a lazy podcaster. That would be me. I'm the tech guy. And I have been knee deep in the hoopla with a ⁓ with a real world job and a ⁓ home ⁓ renovation and a broken foot. So and Morse code. so

James Engelhardt: You are also the tech guy, it's no shade. You are the, yeah. Yes. Alright.

Joe Mahaffey: I am discovering though that Riverside, the platform that we use to record, actually has some features that may make it easy for me to be less lazy and more automagic. So I'm exploring, ⁓ I'm not just gonna willy-nilly do it. I want to explore it a little bit and hopefully we will have ⁓ regular cadences of releases. And I may even be able to move our website over there, which could be interesting as well. ⁓

James Engelhardt: That's... Well, I know you like playing with all the tech toys too, so this is a... not a bad excuse to do that.

Joe Mahaffey: I do like playing with the tech toys, but I really like it when the tech toys are easy and seamless and it's almost I'm not saying it doesn't require intervention. You know, because sometimes, you know, James will say something that's just woefully inappropriate and I have to go edit it out. And if you go back through the episodes, you can tell where I've done that. So I encourage you all to go back to our catalog and listen to each and every episode. And when you find where you think I have edited something that James said inappropriately out of the podcast.

James Engelhardt: I do, yeah. ⁓ yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: I want you to put it in the show notes and let us know that you found it. And if you found it correctly, I will send you a personal copy of ⁓ Bone Willows. Yes. Absolutely. There you go. So there's our contest. Let's see, let's see if that spikes us up in the ratings on the on the catalog. Anyway, so more to come on that.

James Engelhardt: Bone willows. There it is. Ha

Joe Mahaffey: More to come on that, but I just kinda wanted to to lay it out at the the top of the the podcast here 'cause you're all gonna be listening to it like, Where you guys been? We've been recording. Joe's just been lazy.

James Engelhardt: No, and busy. Just busy as hell.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, yeah. It's ⁓ it has been pretty busy. I did I did just finish, ⁓ while we're on that topic, I did just finish my intermediate CW Academy Morse code class. And this weekend is the ⁓ annual amateur radio field day from the ⁓ ARRL, the American Radio Relay League. And ⁓ so I was in a park yesterday and

James Engelhardt: Excellent. oooo Nice.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, and I did Morse code for an hour for the club. And just be you know, that okay, this is the one of the nerd moments that doesn't sound like it's ⁓ a gaming. Although every connection we made, we earned points. At the end of this there's a ranking and we will see how we did nationally against everybody else that's been doing field I mean there are people outside Yeah there is a l yeah there's

James Engelhardt: Wow. So there's a game, yeah, there's the game right there, yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Contesting is a big thing in ham radio, but we were not allowed to touch ⁓ a frequency. No, that well, that too, yes. ⁓ we were not allowed to touch on 40 meters 7.1. 7.134. It was either 134 or 135. I don't have it in front of me, so I'm not absolutely sure. However, there was one frequency we were not allowed to use. Nobody in the country.

James Engelhardt: Okay. The Volunteers. You Okay.

Joe Mahaffey: was allowed to use that frequency yesterday because that frequency, well that's not true. Nobody was in the country was allowed to use that frequency unless they were participating in Venezuelan earthquake relief because that is the that is the frequency that we are using to ⁓ facilitate messaging in and out of ⁓ Venezuela. The earthquake. And so that is really why ham radio exists, because it can do things that when the grid goes down and the power goes down, there are ways

James Engelhardt: ⁓ okay. Wow, cool.

Joe Mahaffey: communicate with people around the world. So ⁓ enough that, but that is ⁓ that was yesterday. But that is not all we're here to talk about, James. So let's get over into the topic of the day, which let's start with some news and notes. ⁓ I sa I saw that you went to one of my favorite game stores in North Carolina.

James Engelhardt: That's fantastic. Awesome. Cool. ⁓ You have mentioned it before, when my family and I, went to the beach, Carolina Beach, just sort of south of Wilmington, North Carolina, ⁓ Cape Fear Games was a place that I was like, okay, whatever else we do, I have a side quest, I wanna go to Cape Fear Games. ⁓ Yep, yep. So great shop, absolutely, super fun, really enjoyed it. ⁓

Joe Mahaffey: You wonder. Is the sideboard still there? The restaurant that's adjacent to it? Okay.

James Engelhardt: It was the end of a long day. Emerson was kind of losing his mind, so I didn't get to spend as much time as I wanted to. But I did pick up this game over here, ⁓ Three Ring Circus, at Cape Fear Games, off of their... What? Right, yeah, yeah, it's a Three Ring Circus. ⁓ No, so it was ⁓ on their sale shelf, though, and was like, yeah, this is fantastic. Had my eye on it for a while, and so was able to buy something from them and get out the door before Emerson absolutely lost his mind.

Joe Mahaffey: Sure. All it's all about how the government works, right? It's all about how the government works. Yes. Schoolhouse. Yeah.

James Engelhardt: So that's good. So I was thinking about that when I found an article on Board Game Wire. It was about Red Castle Games in Portland, Oregon. ⁓ And their owner had won the Small Business Person of the Year award from the Oregon chapter of the Small Business Association. Anyway, so it's been there for 16 years. It's gone through a lot of stuff. But what I liked about it is it kind of emphasizes what we talk about when it comes to great game shops. It's about

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ huh. Yeah.

James Engelhardt: diverse customer base, building loyalty, making your store a destination in the community. ⁓ There was a lot of other businessy stuff, but I was thinking about the store issues and thinking about events besides Magic. ⁓ And they're like, no, we have summer camps who come in. You have summer camps that come into your game shop? That sounds awesome. And then if game companies are having promotions and community events, bringing people in. So it's reminded me just, again, of all the the good game shops that I've been in, kind of have that vibe. Like, here's a calendar of all the stuff that we're going to be doing. It seems like every night and every day there's something going on. ⁓ like centering yourself in a community ⁓ as a brick and mortar, right? That you're looking beyond, ⁓ like anybody can go to Game Nerds or Amazon or whatever to get something quick and cheap, but you need to be that destination. And so thinking about that in terms of Cape Fear games, which was again. A lovely shop. I was glad that you had recommended it.

Joe Mahaffey: I wished I had known you were there and you were going that way because ⁓ one of my so I did I worked with a a s a a scouting organization for twenty years and one of my scouts lives in Wilmington and his wife, because that was a long time ago and everybody's older now, his wife is the Pokemon card estimator for Cape Fear Games.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ wow. OK. That's a hell of a position to have, right? I am your card estimator. Yeah. And it was interesting, too, because when you go in there, ⁓ they've got the card game stuff. They've got the regular tabletop RPGs. But they also have in the back more dexterity and megadexterity, so nice crocanole boards, but also a lot of disc golf and this kind of stuff that I was like, yeah, this is what you're.

Joe Mahaffey: Well, I she probably does she probably does other stuff, but you know. Yeah.

James Engelhardt: your community wants like we're here for it. And here in Greenville at ⁓ Boardwalk, they've got a lot of like darts. I guess there's a big darts community around here. So they have a whole section about darts. ⁓ So you don't die. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Darts are better than darts, so you're good. Yeah. Yeah.

James Engelhardt: No, it was a great shop. And I would encourage people, anybody's in Wilmington, the North Carolina beaches on that side, stop in. Fantastic shop.

Joe Mahaffey: Absolutely. Cape Cape Your Games is a great shop. ⁓ right there on Oleander, down the street from the main mall. it's a great spot. And then then they have the little sideboard, which is their little restaurant kind of thing where you can they have games on the the wall that you can take down and just start playing while you're enjoying a beer or having a snack or whatever you want to do. So Cape Fear Games, Welming to North Carolina, not a sponsor.

James Engelhardt: Yep. They do. not sponsor. But I wouldn't, I would, so I was looking at, looking for like board game cafes and online it says that that shop, that that cafe has closed somewhat permanently. That is not true. It is still open. You can go, you have to go through the, you know, the game store, like, you you exit through the gift shop kind of thing. ⁓ But yep, it's there doing well.

Joe Mahaffey: Yep. Good to know. It's been a hot so my my daughter graduated ⁓ twenty twenty two. So I haven't had to go to Wilmington since then. So it's been a hot minute. Yeah, it's a great, great spot.

James Engelhardt: It's still there. Yeah. And then if you're going in the other direction, if you want to go to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, you want to check out some ⁓ Dollywood.

Joe Mahaffey: Well, you know you know, Dollywood is the nation's favorite theme park, ⁓ according to a recent survey, beating out the people in Anaheim and Orlando. Yes. Yes. So the there would be a reason to go there.

James Engelhardt: with the mouse ears? Yeah. Yeah. There is, and if it's raining or super hot and you don't want to go to Dollywood, you can go to Hasbro's new The Play District, which is this 50,000 square foot ⁓ space. And they've got ⁓ Nerf, Peppa Pig, and Play School sections. So you can go and play Nerf guns and do Nerfy stuff. You can take your preschoolers. or the PlaySchool stuff is like Play-Doh and other hands-on activity kind of things. ⁓ So that's what Hasbro is building. should be summer of 2027. So if you're in the Pigeon Forge area, way distant.

Joe Mahaffey: Are they testing the waters of their own Legoland kind of concept, maybe?

James Engelhardt: I kind of figure. ⁓ And given that Dollywood really does attract family, and if, as you say, then Dollywood has surpassed the mouse and others as like favorite place to go, seems like a good place to try things out.

Joe Mahaffey: Well, see, the thing I love about Pigeon Forge. Not not only do you have Dolly Not not only do you have Dollywood there. And there is an amazing craft loop between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, where I have a whole series of Aileywine pottery coffee mugs that we've gotten there that are each uniquely made. ⁓ that we got on the craft route. But more most importantly

James Engelhardt: besides the name. Nice.

Joe Mahaffey: It is the gateway to the Smoky Mountains, Smoky Mountains National Park. So if you're playing parks and you look at that card and go, ⁓ look, there's a bear. And then you're like, ⁓ you're in this park. And ⁓ look, there's a bear.

James Engelhardt: There you go. There's a bear, just like the one on the card.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. So it's great s it's a it's a great spot to go play games.

James Engelhardt: Yep. so Hasbro is branching out. And then the other piece of news I found that feels a little more, well, I guess all these feel kind of on brand because all things Southern we got there going on. ⁓ But over in Europe, Awaken Realms has buying Thundergrift games or acquiring Thundergrift games. They're sort of matching up. So Awaken Realms does big splashy games, lots of miniatures, big chunky things. And it's Awakened Realms began as an out shoot of Game Found. So the guy started Game Found and then decided to open his own game company to, I guess, leverage his own platform. ⁓ Thunder Griff, though, has a spectrum of games going from Darwin's Journey to abstracts, card games with their Made in Wonderland stuff. And then they've got these little, yep.

Joe Mahaffey: Garden. Tangarten.

James Engelhardt: Tang Garden, yep. They've got these little matchbox games and they've got this soda pop line where everything comes in a 16 ounce can, which is kind of funny. But it looks like what's going on is that Thundergriff has kind of grown beyond what the founder kind of expected. So they need like production and logistics support. And I think Awaken Realms wants to like expand their portfolio because they've got, again, the big chunky games. They're like, we'd like to reach maybe a wider audience. So it feels like a good match.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ that's going to just something to keep an eye on. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Now, is Thunder and I'm I'm not a hundred percent on this. I'm I'm I'm I'm in inferring something that has been implied.

James Engelhardt: I know.

Joe Mahaffey: And that and that is I believe Thundergriff is a is a Latin American company, is it not?

James Engelhardt: They were like Italy.

Joe Mahaffey: They were Brazilian well, they've they've got some Italy designers or Italian designers, but it seems to me that and I d I'm not saying I know for sure, but I I wanna say that ⁓ they're Brazilian or Argentinian. I could be wrong. and I only am trying to 'cause I've I've backed a number of Kickstarters with them and

James Engelhardt: Yeah, yeah. Okay, well let's... Let's find out.

Joe Mahaffey: Maybe that's why I'm ⁓ maybe there was something in one of the Kickstarters that just either gave me the right impression and I'm correct, or the wrong impression in your butt

James Engelhardt: And I can't.

Joe Mahaffey: I was scanning the article to see if I could validate that or

James Engelhardt: Yeah. I'm just looking at that too, because I have with all of the names, I was just defaulting to Italy. So yeah, I don't know. That's a good question.

Joe Mahaffey: Okay. Yeah. Well, I don't I I don't know. I don't know for sure. And it's not really and it's the only reason it's in it would be of note here is is that you have a European company purchasing a Latin American company and the world, you know, and and you know, this is such a global access kind of thing. I'm looking at the Thundergriff website now to see if I can see any context clues.

James Engelhardt: Okay. Mm-hmm. I know, it's powered by Frog Riot, which I think is a great name, but that is the best I got.

Joe Mahaffey: Let me let me let me ask my sidekick here, ⁓ Chat GPT.

James Engelhardt: All right.

Joe Mahaffey: And see if it knows.

James Engelhardt: Speak to us, Oracle. that would be a thing. I'd call it the Oracle, think. That's what I'm gonna do from now on. The Oracle.

Joe Mahaffey: Well, you know, I have had a lot of good luck with ⁓ getting good information out of it recently.

James Engelhardt: Sure.

Joe Mahaffey: Okay. Learn to spell headquartered. There we go. I probably just drained a pond somewhere. But no, that's great. I I think that's that's awesome. ⁓ we're both wrong. Thunder Griff Thunder Griff g but ⁓ but I'm closer to being right than you are. ⁓ culturally. I think you're probably closer to being right geographically. ⁓ they are they are headquartered in Seville, Spain.

James Engelhardt: and There we go. ⁓ good. ⁓ okay, fair. Okay. ⁓ okay.

Joe Mahaffey: So that would explain ⁓ Gonzalo Ac Acquier. ⁓ BC. I I'm gonna go with the last name BC because I know I can pronounce that ⁓ correctly. Anyway, so yeah, no, I love their stuff. I mean Tang Tang Garden. Man, that we love that game. In fact, I bought the the reprint that had the big box. So I I I technically have two copies of the game. ⁓

James Engelhardt: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. ⁓ okay. Awesome.

Joe Mahaffey: in that way. But we it's an amazing I don't know if you ever had a chance to play it.

James Engelhardt: I have not, I've got Darwin's Journey, I've played that. ⁓ They have a beautiful approach to graphic design. Yeah, I love the look of their games. And I think that's part of what Wic and Realms is interested in as well, right? Because they do this kind of dark, er, ⁓ and I think lightening it up ⁓ without having to change their own identity, just say, hey, we brought these partners on, and now we have this other line that's a little more family friendly. We got these little games, as well as the big grimdark stuff.

Joe Mahaffey: Yes. Well, I love also the way that you can, you know, total up your scores. Cause in Tang Garden, you're you're building a garden in China and you're putting players on the board. Like the you might have the emperor, you might have the empress, or you might have the mistress. And you at the end of the game, if the I w I'm probably saying this wrong, but you don't want the empress to be able to see the mistress.

James Engelhardt: Right. Awesome. That seems about right. That's hilarious, though.

Joe Mahaffey: And that and you get more points if the Emperor does not see the mistress. I think that's right. Well no, I mean it's it's really spot on with the I mean the artwork and how you build your garden and and and you know, calculate points and put things ⁓ it's amazing. But there's a lot of there's a lot of nicks and knacks in there that you gotta build put together in the miniatures. I ⁓ there are there's some great websites or Discords out there with people.

James Engelhardt: That's, I mean, when we talk about theme, that's really what you're looking for. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Mahaffey: that have painted their minis that the game comes with. I've not done that because we just kinda you know Yeah. But now I have two sets of minis, so maybe I will.

James Engelhardt: Just kind of go with it. Mine as well. Very different. You can just experiment with one and then you'll go with the other. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Anyway, ⁓ Yeah, so that's good news. Congrats to ⁓ Awaken Realms and ⁓ Thundergrift. We look forward to ⁓

James Engelhardt: I think it's going be good for both. know that ⁓ Thunderdrift wants to, the guy who is running it wants to do more like development and felt kind of stuck doing all the logistics. And so I think that's going to open them to continue to develop games like on the heavier side, like you're talking about, and then they're lighter games as well. So it'll be good.

Joe Mahaffey: Minute. Well, think about it, it most most of these publishers, and we've talked about this before, are basically literally mom and pop type of companies running out of their garage, but they're dealing with a global ⁓ customer base, which the hats you gotta wear. Yeah. I mean, because I've you know, I'm you know, you've already we we've all had that game that was either A, you're it's missing a piece.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. As well as supply chain, right? Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Or you lose a piece and you have to contact them and say, Hey, I need this replacement piece You know, and and it's it's it's gotta be very taxing when you don't have a staff. And you also wanna design the next game. So anyway.

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm. Well, or you hire a staff and then you're like, still, now I don't have time to design the next game because I'm managing. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Managing. Well, it's interesting that you bring that up because I'm gonna ⁓ move us on here. ⁓ so since the inception of this podcast, we've always used the phrase Carolina Tabletop Games not a sponsor, but they should be. ⁓ well, I it it it there is a new chapter in the world of Carolina Tabletop Games.

James Engelhardt: Please do. not a sponsor. Indeed. Okay.

Joe Mahaffey: The owner, friend of ours, Rob, has, as I understand it, he has sold the store. But he did not sell Carolina Tabletop Games LLC. So the Cosmic Hearth has taken over the space in the inventory and just basically bought him out. And they will keep.

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Joe Mahaffey: Carolina Tabletop Games signage up, but there will also be the cosmic hearth. Is it's a board game store. It's a board game concept. They have three locations. Well, they have two locations in Charlotte. They're about to build their third in. So they have one in Concord. Governor Concord Mills. That's their of their initial store. They have bought Carolina Tabletop Games in Pineville. So that's the opposite end of the county.

James Engelhardt: Okay, and Cosmic Hearth ⁓ ⁓ okay. Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Okay.

Joe Mahaffey: So literally about, you know, fifteen miles apart as the crow flies, probably more like an hour apart if you like traffic. Yes. And then the third one is being ⁓ built out in Belmont, North Carolina, which is between here and Gastonia.

James Engelhardt: Charlotte traffic, yeah. ⁓ OK. Mm-hmm. Farther west.

Joe Mahaffey: 'Cause everybody everybody knows that Charlotte is the gateway to S Gastonia.

James Engelhardt: It is indeed.

Joe Mahaffey: That's what we're know. We are the regional world financial capital. That's right. According that's the one time Charlotte was ever mentioned mentioned in a Saturday Night Live that ⁓ they called it the game. Yeah, Studio Like, ⁓ that's that's that's spot on. I love it. Yeah. Well, it was ⁓ we had a basketball player at

James Engelhardt: ⁓ that's much better. The gateway to Gastonia, yep. Somebody knew the area for that joke.

Joe Mahaffey: the Charlotte Hornets ⁓ Lamello or I don't know. I don't follow it. Anyway. ⁓ but they're but his dad's like a former player or a coach or something or other and they were and ⁓ Keenan was ⁓ doing the impersonation and he w it was just very funny. Anyway. Yeah. Anyway. So good for Rob and ⁓ James Lovell, I believe is his name. ⁓ I

James Engelhardt: ⁓ yep, yep, That's good. I think I've seen that sketch,

Joe Mahaffey: Don't have it in front of me, but I have a picture of him and his f lovely family. ⁓ I've been in the store. They were he's been l ⁓ selling board games half price. But I didn't need any Yeah. Right. So Well, they've already taken over. There he was just he bought the inventory, I guess, pennies on the dollar. I don't know. I don't know how I don't I don't know the I don't know the terms of the deal. I just

James Engelhardt: Go. ⁓ wow. ⁓ because they're liquidating their inventory before the other company takes over. The other institution got it. ⁓ Okay. Fair enough.

Joe Mahaffey: I just asked the question about the cosmic hearth versus Carolina Tabletop Games. But the way and and the funny thing is the way this came to me is I ⁓ I own a I I own a I run the Discord server, basically. It's on my server. It's ⁓ so ⁓ I'm I'm happy to relinquish it, you know, have been happy to relinquish it to Rob. ⁓ you can transfer it, but we've just decided the status quo because I set it up years ago. And ⁓ so

James Engelhardt: ⁓ okay. So sure.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ Rob will say, Hey, can you make so and so ⁓ an an admin? And I'm like, sure. Is this the guy? Because I was going through the Discord trying to find him. And he says, Yeah. And I said, Well, who is he? He's like, ⁓ I just sold the store to him. I'm like, ⁓ okay. I should probably go in and meet the guy. So So I did, you know, I went in to meet him and and ⁓ so it's

James Engelhardt: Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: I haven't you know, obviously it just literally happened, so I gotta go back in and sort of see what he's done with the place. Because it sounds like in addition to selling what you know, some of Rob's inventory, he has ⁓ been bringing games down from the Concord store to keep selling ⁓ So But those are the still not a sponsor.

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Alright, still not a sponsor.

Joe Mahaffey: Well, James, I would love to tell you about all the games that I've been playing, but unless ⁓ does the ⁓ ARR field day count when I was getting the club yesterday. ⁓ yeah. Now we're as we've mentioned on episodes that none of you have heard because I haven't published them yet. there we've been knee deep in a construction or a remodeling project. And consequently

James Engelhardt: I would love to hear it, but... Yeah That was the contest, yeah. Good luck on the outcome.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ there's actually no room to play games 'cause we have had to move stuff all the way around the head looks like it looks bad. I mean they could shoot an episode of hoarders.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ right, because everything, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, everything's all in, you know. Anyway. So I have nothing to report as of yet, other than our project is almost done. And my loverly bride and I celebrate thirty-five years of marriage to

James Engelhardt: That is so good. Woohoo! ⁓ congratulations, you two crazy kids. And they said it would never last.

Joe Mahaffey: And no, Stockholm Syndrome is real. so I'm you know looking forward to ⁓ getting the game out and plus with this new addition that we've put on, we there's lots of light to play a game and actually we can play a game out on our screened in porch now.

James Engelhardt: You Yeah, you've been sharing photos with me and it looks amazing. Like, fantastic space, both of the two spaces.

Joe Mahaffey: Part of me w Part of me wonders if I have to take down my ⁓ my game table and just go where the games can be played. I may have to rethink my whole strategy of how to do that.

James Engelhardt: Mm. There you go. Ooh, strategy. That's the thing. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: All right, so that's my that's my report. I will I will I will report back further if there is something noteworthy. I hope to I hope to have something to discuss next time.

James Engelhardt: See? Well, you can ask me questions about games that I've been playing. ⁓ So, yes. Joe, thank you. Thank you for asking. That's so unexpected. So, we were, ⁓ again, we were at the beach. ⁓ Lovely, lovely Airbnb, a block and a half from Carolina Beach off of the main drags. It was very nice. And so, but at night,

Joe Mahaffey: Hey James, tell me about the games you've been playing. Yeah, I don't think I told you, but go ahead.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ Emerson would, you know, go off to bed, and Laura and I and Sky would sit down and play a couple of games. So one of the games we picked up is Gnar or K'nar, depending on which side of the Atlantic you're on. If you're in Europe, apparently they like the hard K'nar. K'nar! You know, it's a fine name, K-N-A-R-R, but at the same time you're like, could you do something that's a little more legible? Anyway. ⁓ So this is a 2023 Bombex Devere. It's Pandasaurus here in the States. Designed, yeah, yeah. And it's a French company. So I'm going to give them the French name. So was designed by Thomas Dupont and art by Antoine Carillon. And it's important because Antoine, his last name is C-A-R-R-I-O-N. So it'd be, know, Anthony Carion, which doesn't sound so good as Antoine Carillon, right? So there he is. Zutala!

Joe Mahaffey: Zoot.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ So, all these things. ⁓ So, in this game, you are Vikings. You wouldn't have known that from the title, but you are Vikings. And you are bringing other Vikings and random recruits to your sail-powered longboats and setting off for trade and exploration. have to bring, remember to bring your silver bracelets with you for the trade thing. ⁓ But it is a hand management, tableau building, engine building, and then engine shedding or shredding kind of game. ⁓ Something like, it feels... like Splendor Plus, but with interesting twists, including the shredding your engine thing. So you'll have three Viking cards in your hand. You'll play one down. And you don't have to pay for it. You just drop the card. They all have these different color suits. And you get the resource benefits that are shown for everything that you've played in that suit, including what you've just played. So it's kind of generous that way. And then you go shopping for another Viking in the display. one of the twists is that. the display board has the different colors for each of the suits. But you'll flip a card off the top of the deck, and it'll just go into whatever you just pulled. So it could be a red card under the yellow. So if you play a yellow card, can, for free, get whatever card is under the yellow dot. ⁓ If you want to buy a different one, you have to pay one of those recruits, and then you can just grab any one you want.

Joe Mahaffey: Right. I'm glad you explained that because I've been hearing a lot about yellow cards and red cards recently, but the don't sound like that name. Yeah. Yeah.

James Engelhardt: Yeah, yeah, it's funny. Yeah. It's funny that I did that. I should have gone with blue and green just to be ⁓ for the colorblind in the audience. ⁓ So, ⁓ but eventually you'll need to go sailing because you're a Viking, damn it. ⁓ And so there are these trading card, destined trading card lines up and adventuring destination cards lined up. ⁓ And as soon as you've got the recruits bracelets, Vikings that kind of match the recipes that are on those cards, you pull those. But then you have to get rid of the Vikings, the other stuff. So you've got this lovely engine you've built up, and then you have to let go of it. Although the destinations, all those cards also have a little sort side engine going for you, although you have to play pay bracelets for that. ⁓ In the end, the first person to 40 points wins, or triggers the end game. All of this lovely Viking stuff, no, it's points. ⁓ Then you play out the rest of the round and Bob's your uncle. ⁓ It's a beautiful game. It really leans into the sort of Celtic Northern art style. ⁓ It's really solid on the lighter side of things, which was great for the beach. ⁓ The decisions you're making are painful because you're like, ⁓ I really like how this stack of Vikings looks, but that card up there with the points is the one that I need. I I should go over the points. And it's also a sort of a timing challenge too, because you're like, okay, I've got this going, I've got this going. ⁓ When do I start shredding? When do I build it up? When do I start tearing it down? ⁓ But you only do one of two things on a turn, right? You either ⁓ get a Viking or you go sailing. So it's pretty, there's just a binary choice. So there's not a lot of like five or six things I could do. ⁓ The interaction is limited to what's on display in the card markets. You're like, ⁓ know, this guy's getting a whole bunch of red cards. I probably need to grab that red card. Let see there was the red again. Okay, I need the purple card. I need to get the purple card. ⁓ Yeah. It's a small box, easy to pack for travel. Again, going to the beach. ⁓ And it's just, it was fantastic for vacation or like a tasty little filler on a game night when you've got a bunch of other stuff going on. It's nice. I highly recommend it. Any questions? Thoughts? Concerns? Besides yellow and red cards? Whistles not being blown?

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Well I I always love a good Viking story. Yeah. No, it sounds like a really good game. and yet y'all was that the only one you played while you were at the beach? There was a

James Engelhardt: There you go. It is. It is not. Thank you for that segue. So other small games we brought, we played Scout, which is 2019. So it's been around for a while. It's been on my to playlist. I haven't picked it up, but we were going to the beach and it's a little bitty box because it's from Oink Games, designed by Kei Kajino. Art, well, really it's graphic design. I there's a little bit of art, but really it's just graphic design by the aforementioned Kei Kajino, Rie... Kamutsusaki, Jun Sasaki, and Shohei Asaoka, which is, once again, Oink is based in Japan, in case you didn't get that from my terrible pronunciation of Japanese names. ⁓ That's where... Yeah, mostly European languages. is my, yeah. So I apologize for everybody, to everybody who knows and speaks Japanese for what I just did. ⁓ So...

Joe Mahaffey: And you're the and you're the linguist amongst us. That's theory.

James Engelhardt: I've been wanting to play it, as I said, kind of got it to the table late, but man, it was the, as they say, was the hit of the con, hit of the vacation, mostly because Skye kept winning. So she was like, let's play scout again. I won one game off her. Laura didn't win anything until we got home and we kept playing it. Laura was finally like, yes, I've won a game. So.

Joe Mahaffey: Tell tell Sky you're gonna start calling her a scout. See.

James Engelhardt: Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Ooh, that'd be good. Yeah. Kill a mockingbird, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So this is, have you played this Joe? Do know this one? I mean, you probably know it by reputation, right?

Joe Mahaffey: But yeah. I've not ⁓ I know more by reputation. I've never played it.

James Engelhardt: OK. So it's a ladder climbing, it's a contemporary classic in the genre. I think it won this, Biltis Yaris, right? Or was it a nominee? Something like that. OK. So you've got a deck. You adjust the deck according to the number of players, and then you just deal out the deck, right? So however many players you've got, you're going to deal it all out. And there are two tricks to this. One is...

Joe Mahaffey: I wouldn't know.

James Engelhardt: Sort of like ⁓ Bonanza, when you pick up your cards, you never change the order. They stay there. But they are double ended, right? So there's one number at the top and another at the bottom. And so you can, at the beginning, decide to flip your hand and see what that looks like or go back. But once you've decided which orientation, you're locked in. Yep. And then you can't move anything. So you've got three things you can do. You can scout, show, or.

Joe Mahaffey: Right. You're stuck there. Well that's interesting.

James Engelhardt: Scout and show. ⁓ Which means you either, if you're going to scout, you grab a card that's already out there that someone has played down and you can add it to your hand. And at that point, you can put it wherever you want at whatever orientation you want. Showing, and then the other person gets a victory point chip. The other thing you want to do is show. And this is where the sort of ladder climbing comes in. You have to have a

Joe Mahaffey: When's the thing? Hmm.

James Engelhardt: a higher show than what is out on the table already. So either more cards or more whatever. ⁓ But you have you play adjacent cards from your hand, two twos, three threes, whatever, one, two, three, three, two, one ⁓ out. but you so you're having to manipulate by like grabbing stuff from the board or playing those shows out so you can bring like maybe I've got you can play a single card like I'm to put this one out so I can bring these two sixes together, right? like you would do in Bonanza. Like, I'm gonna give you a card, you're gonna get a bean field because you're gonna take the damn wax beans, right? And then of course the scout and show means that you grab a card out there and then put down a better show. ⁓ You end the round, if you go out, like I put down the show and it's, my hand is empty, the round ends. Or if it comes, I play a show out and it comes back to me and it's still that. Nobody has cleared that off. ⁓ Then you get negative points for cards in hand. You play three rounds, whoever has the most points wins. It's a fantastic beer and pretzels game. ⁓ Scout is supposed to be about ⁓ circuses, but yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: I'm looking at that. I mean I see the the I'm looking at the box. I see the motif.

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Joe Mahaffey: But the way you've described it

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Yeah, it's the very latest whiff of theme. It's like, you know, the sparkling flavored sodas, where they just run through a field with the where a circus used to be. ⁓

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Well now Well, now keep in mind that you've already you've already implied that the designers are not necessarily Western and culturally that may be very appropriate.

James Engelhardt: right. And I mean, think you could have done whatever theme you wanted to. And it's kind of fun. All the cards have names and like, here's Carlos, the trapeze artist, and here is, ⁓ you know, Charlotte, the unicyclist, but it's in like eight point font on the card. it's, it's not even not really taking things over. Yeah. ⁓ Or be like under the age of 30. ⁓ Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. So you have to use the magnifying glass feature of your phone. Got it. Well, there's that too. Or you could get the new ⁓ like I Jamie's already set the trend of, you know, large cards for Wikipedia, so maybe that's what will be next will be, you know, scout f Scout for seniors.

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm. So ⁓ it's fantastic. And it is, if your family is used to playing any sort of traditional card game, think, particularly in the gin and rummy tradition, ⁓ it's fabulous. It's got just a couple of little twists. It takes a hand or two to kind of get settled on how that works. then, yeah, yep. And then it's just fantastic. And it's, yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Mm-hmm. As you do. Yeah.

James Engelhardt: Very accessible. ⁓ And again, tiny, tiny box. If you're traveling, it's a good one. And it's a good one regardless. mean, even at home, we played it for game night the other night as well. So it's just a fantastic little game.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Now how and does it play well with two people?

James Engelhardt: We have not tried it at two, think. I mean, you could probably do that, but I think three is going to be, ⁓ three or four is where you want it to be.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, this is good. They always expect you to have that third wheel.

James Engelhardt: I know. Well, you have daughters who come through from time to time. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have cats, which is too bad.

Joe Mahaffey: Yes. That's fair. ⁓ I'm okay with that.

James Engelhardt: You

Joe Mahaffey: well it looks like a good game. Kinda kinda reminds me of Uno just the way it looks. ⁓ I mean lots of c not s lots of colors and I see what you mean by the ⁓ the zigzag between the the two numbers and kind of flip ⁓ around and decide what you're gonna play.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ yeah, no it really is. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they've got a nice little design so that if you've got the 8 and the other side is a 3, like it has a little bubble that shows you what the other number is, so you can kind of look at your cards and go, oh yeah, I've got three 3s as opposed to this 6, 7, you know. you can, but no. Right. Although we did have a couple of 6, 7 pairs just because.

Joe Mahaffey: Don't don't use those two numbers side by side. Ha ha. Yeah, yeah.

James Engelhardt: So one other funny thing we did, the house had a copy of Trivial Pursuit from 1984. And I was like, we're not going to play that game. But we would have some fun late nights, mean, late when you've got a five-year-old near the room, of ⁓ sitting on the porch ⁓ with a flashlight or phone flashlights, just reading questions and trying to figure out if we knew the answers. ⁓

Joe Mahaffey: Okay. And did you?

James Engelhardt: a surprising number of times. And what was also what we discovered was that some of the cards were themed. Like it would have like all of these questions about say the Brontes, like not in sports necessarily, but you know, in these other categories, like, huh, the answer is, but then we were just thinking about like, ⁓ yeah, you could do that because you're not going to answer more than one question on that card in a game. Right. So that was kind of fun.

Joe Mahaffey: Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah. Right. Right. Plus if you think about it, that would have been at a time when those cards were probably laid out by a designer, not randomly generated by a computer. You know, think about it. ⁓ the production of that was very different than it would have been today. You know. Anyway.

James Engelhardt: I'm just a nice Mm-hmm. Right. Yep. No, absolutely. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but it was super fun to experience Trivia Pursuit like that, as opposed to actually playing the game.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, I know. Yeah, well I I loved I mean I loved playing Trivial Pursuit that edition. ⁓ 'cause I'm really good at history and stuff like that. So I was always like, Yeah, I know the answer. Get out of my way.

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm. Grrr! And it was fun because there would be ⁓ sort of pop culture questions like TV shows and movies ⁓ that were more for a boomer audience, right? Because these would have been adults in the early 80s. What? ⁓ yeah, yeah, right, right. Exactly. But it's like, no, who, you know, questions about like the honeymooners or gun smoke or even more obscure TV shows were like, we don't even know what the question is asking us.

Joe Mahaffey: Anything streaming? Anything streaming? I'm joking. Keep going.

James Engelhardt: Right? And so that was just kind of fun for all of me, because we had two generations. had Gen Xers and we've got Gen Z, right? And we're all just going, I have no idea what they're talking about. Or you'd have some weird scene of knowledge where Sky would pop up and go, no, I did this in A push. AP US history, right? ⁓ I did this in A push. And so it gave her a chance to get on a soap box and you know.

Joe Mahaffey: I'm I'm I'm more unnerved by the fact that she's old enough to have taken a push.

James Engelhardt: Yeah, yeah, she's gonna be a senior in high school.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ go get the cane!

James Engelhardt: Ha Yeah, no, it's amazing.

Joe Mahaffey: Just wait till she gets into Furman University.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ She has no interest in from university. Which is fine. Yeah, no, she's gonna stay up in the Midwest. I know. But that's how it is.

Joe Mahaffey: Clemson university. Let me let me talk to her.

James Engelhardt: Hahaha!

Joe Mahaffey: How would you like to go an entire school year without snow?

James Engelhardt: I was talking to ⁓ first years, incoming first years, a couple of them from like Chicago, Massachusetts, Denver, and I'm like, winter is about to go bye bye.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ we live on the far side of the isothermal belt. Look it up. Well, that's you know, it's one of the reasons that they have so many of the data centers in North Carolina along that ⁓ three twenty one and seventy four corridor is that isothermal belt. Because they are they're pretty much guaranteed they're not gonna get a hurricane or a bad blizzard.

James Engelhardt: We do. ⁓ yeah. It's gonna be comfy. It's gonna blow your mind. Mm. Yep. It is.

Joe Mahaffey: Which is important for a data center. Anyway, ⁓ go ahead. Yeah, sure, go into it.

James Engelhardt: So I have maybe one more to talk about. Cool. So we got home. It was good. And then Sky was still here for game night. And as I mentioned, I went to Cape Fear Games and picked up over my left shoulder three ring circus. Somehow this is an episode about circuses. So this is a 2023 game from Devere. and others, and again, sort of a smallish box. ⁓ Joe can see this behind me in the lovely, yeah, the lovely size of Devere boxes. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, De Vere's great. I mean that that's the the makers of Rock Hard nineteen seventy seven. There's many others, but that's the

James Engelhardt: Exactly. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah. I love, Rockard's got a traditional ticket to ride size box. And I love these little smaller ones where ⁓ there was also a concern going to Cape Fear. Can I find something smallish that I really am interested in that's going to be? Right. So this was fun. is, right, 2023, ⁓ Remo Canzedori and Fabio Lopiano, ⁓ art by Edu Valls.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah.

James Engelhardt: So, ⁓ and this is, it's kind of cartoony art, but it's super fun and very much leaning into the circus thing. ⁓ Yeah. So this is a heavier game than what we've talked about so far. Canar and ⁓ Scout are little bitty, very light. So this is what I was happy to dive into. ⁓ It's not, it doesn't play super long and it's not super

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ I guess.

James Engelhardt: but it's got a lot going on. So that was good. We had four tables of gamers for game night. So this was good for like people like going home with their spouses. So Scout is supposed to be out circuses. This is very much about circus life mid 19th century as PT Barnum and James Bailey were trying to build the greatest show on earth, TM. ⁓ You've got two, you've got a main board, you've got player boards.

Joe Mahaffey: Right.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ The main board is a map of the upper Midwest and the Rust Belt with a little bit of southern New England. ⁓ And you move around this board and you put on shows at small towns as well as medium and large cities with decreasing numbers of options. So you've got a lot of small towns, some medium towns, and just four five big cities. Your player board has three, your three ring of circus or rows. It's, you know, like wingspan. You've got your three, you know, rows there. ⁓ where you put your performer cards, you line them up, you hope for beneficial combos, and you're also trying to fulfill the interests of crowds in medium and large cities, because they like particular performers, small towns, ain't that picky, you can pretty much do whatever. So, sort of like Knarr, it turns pretty straightforward. You either travel and put on a show, you, ⁓ in order to draw cards and stuff, or you ⁓ hire a performer. into one of your three rings. And you can put them in whichever one of the three rings, but they're always going to be like moving from low to high. So the turns are pretty zippy because you're, that's it, you're one of those two things. ⁓ There are, there's strategy in thinking about which of the lower level performers you'll spend for your hand. So they have little dollar marks on them. So you could spend those to buy the higher level performers. ⁓ The lower tier performers also offer some benefits. Like as you're covering up stuff on your player board, you'll cut down on things you can do, but the lower tier ones can kind of fill that in. And then the higher tier ones are points and combos and benefits and stuff, but only if you set them up correctly. Like everything to the left of me with purple gets me this. And so you have to figure that out. And then there's also, as you're doing these things, a non-IP infringing B &B circus train moving around.

Joe Mahaffey: Okay.

James Engelhardt: There's also ⁓ area majority scoring that happens. And the circus train moving around also is the timer for the game. And when it gets all the way around to where it started, the game ends. And so you're also thinking about, want to put shows up in this section or that section, because otherwise I'm not going to score any points. So there are lots of little puzzles. And what's interesting about the game is it doesn't give you clear signposts. ⁓

Joe Mahaffey: Mm-hmm. Mm.

James Engelhardt: There's the big cities and you're like, I need to go to get to the big cities. But you can also score a lot of points by putting things together on your board correctly. ⁓ so, ⁓ there's a lot of stuff to kind of sort out. ⁓ one of the guys at my table, ⁓ did this mechanism, this mechanism where you, you crank up your pedestals, which is like, think of what the animal acts would be on. Right. And then you go to all these little medium sized cities. And if you put all your pedestals, then you're getting like seven points when you go to, to, to, so he was. just moving, doing that, moving, doing that, like gobbling up these little, these nice chunks of points. And it looked great, but then he didn't really do anything else for his board and didn't hit the big cities and came in kind of not very close to the, not very close to first place. So, but it lets you do that. You're like, you want to do that? Go for it, right? There's nothing that says maybe that's not a good idea. ⁓ So I'm still thinking about like, how to time things and put things together and how to think about cards. So that's a good thing. And again, little box. And I love the Veer for doing the small box, big game thing all the time. And much more, again, this one is much more the circus theme comes all the way to the front.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Right. That's awesome. Well, you know, I jokingly said at the beginning of this when you when I saw it, I th I thought of Schoolhouse Rock and the government, the three three ring circus. It's a great way to explain it. I love that that they did that. I love the schoolhouse rocks. But then and also this is related but unrelated. So we went down to ⁓ Spartanburg the other week.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ yeah. Mm-hmm. I've heard of it.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ right very near you. And we decided that we were gonna go the back way. Like like not even touching interstate back way. And I expected it to take us through Lockhart and places like that, but it didn't. It took us through downtown York, ⁓ which is York County, it's where Rock Hill is. It's in a county that's adjacent to Mecklenburg County and North Carolina, etc.

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm. ⁓ okay. Right.

Joe Mahaffey: And as I'm driving, and this is this is the point of the story, as I'm driving through this middle of York, I come across this trail train track, and we were there was a traffic light that kind of held us up, you know. And it made a comment about this was a winter quarters for a circus.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ cool.

Joe Mahaffey: And so there was a circus from nineteen twenty nine to nineteen forty-five called the Barnett Brothers Circus, later known as the Wallace Brothers Circus Circus. And they would tour from spring to fall, and then they would winter in York County or York, South Carolina, York County, South Carolina. And so ⁓ York for a while became something of a of a circus town.

James Engelhardt: All Mm-hmm.

Joe Mahaffey: So I just, you know, as I was you were sharing this and I was going, I was like, where did I see that? ⁓ but yeah, I just thought that was kind of weird. because that's a pretty darn, you know, New York's known for a lot of things. It was a lot of revolutionary war battles took place there. That whole movie, ⁓ The Patriot, ⁓ with Mel was filmed there because it was like being on location. What was one of the locations. So anyway.

James Engelhardt: Yep. Mm-hmm. Awesome. Mm-hmm. And there's a little circus that comes to town here outside Greenville. And there's this sort of large strip mall kind of thing. And this circus kind of sets up in the parking lot. And it's got a ⁓ modest big top. ⁓ So they're still out there. mean, the Cirque du Soleil, when it was really touring, ⁓ was like that as well. So yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah. Yeah, they can Charlotte every now and again what they set up at the speedway.

James Engelhardt: Oh, right on. When I saw I saw them in Atlanta and they set up in a in a field, I don't remember where, but it was that. And then I saw them in Fairbanks, the one at that point, the only time they'd been to Alaska. But they set up in the like the civic center in the middle of Fairbanks. So, yeah, so I mean, these these the history of circuses is really interesting. And they also in the book, the rule book, there's a paragraph that's like the elephant is titled the elephant in the room, because they have these animal acts that are cards that you're playing, right? I say, okay, here we know, we know that circuses in the 19th century and later did terrible things to animals. ⁓ We recognize this. ⁓ If and they have an alternative ⁓ pack of cards that if if if this is an ethical concern for you, like playing a game that has ⁓ this sort of material in it, that you can buy this and play. They have just more human acts instead. So they do sort of acknowledge and touch on the odd things that, well, just torture that they did to animals in that era. So that was an interesting thing too.

Joe Mahaffey: Yeah, interesting. I I would ⁓ you know, my my feelings about that are I like that they acknowledged it because it happened. Can't put the genie back in the bottle. And ⁓ I I hope I wonder if there was there a statement about how far they've come also since then. Yeah.

James Engelhardt: Mm-hmm, exactly. Right. Yeah, a bit. But that was mostly like, hey, ⁓ we know this is problem. It was a problem then. ⁓ And it was nevertheless part of what happened then. ⁓ And so we were going to have these happy animal pictures. But we also understand that animals were essentially tortured and died doing this. Yes. ⁓ good. That sounds like a weird segue. Go for it.

Joe Mahaffey: So Well, on ⁓ on that topic. Well, you know, you never know with me. in in Meban, North Car in Mebban, North Carolina, there is a place called the Conservators Center. It'll be very it'll be very near the Buckeys that's being built there. the Conservative Center, and what they do is they rescue illegal circus act animals and they give them a place to live out their life where they're very well taken care of.

James Engelhardt: you ⁓ yes. That is good.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ I've been there a few times. A good friend of mine's on the board. And ⁓ I I would I when Sarah was a little girl, I got to take her and her friend up there to see it and they got to play with a baby white tiger. When I found out I wasn't just allergic to domestic cats.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ cool. Aww, that's super sweet. All the cats. Big cats, big allergies. I had an incoming student from Meben, so her and her parents was like, Meben, you know how to pronounce it. So yeah, it's a nice little town. No, it is not. Mebeny. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: All the cats. ⁓ you know Yeah. Yeah. Not me bang. Not me bang. Seemed to be the home of the North Carolina Buckeys.

James Engelhardt: Oh boy. Yeah. So, oh, oh, hey, something that is not on our agenda, but I thought I would share since I got it today or yesterday, the day before. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: I see that. That's a to Gen Con.

James Engelhardt: Yes, GenCon, that's what all the cool kids call it. Four day pass to GenCon, so I'm looking forward to... This is the end of July, like the last two days of July and the first two days of August. Yep, it's like Thursday through Monday, Or yeah, Thursday through Sunday, and then, or, and I'll be there another day or two with a friend of mine, so yeah. Yeah!

Joe Mahaffey: Now when is when are the dates? Excellent. Yeah. Very cool. So lo looks like you've been spending some money on Kickstarter?

James Engelhardt: I have not, but I had some, just in case we wanted to talk about a couple of last games, there's Space Space behind me, friend of mine from Game Night loaned that to us. then Trailblazers is over there that had also come to Game Night a couple months ago. Yep. Yep. And so that one of the...

Joe Mahaffey: Got it. I see. ⁓ I misunderstood the where they yeah, okay.

James Engelhardt: folks from Game Night brought this and was like, Laura, you wanted to play this game? Here you go. So, yep.

Joe Mahaffey: Well, after we play it, we can talk about it on future future things, episodes. What what do you call this again? Well, I I do I do okay, you got another point, I'm sorry. ⁓ you're ⁓ I see. Well, I did want to point out I j I did throw this in the chat because ⁓ we started this talking about some of the games that I have been playing that were great radio games. ⁓ well, there's one coming up that I'm very excited about.

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. No, just like, it's the box right there, yeah. ⁓ yeah!

Joe Mahaffey: That I will be doing. So from July 1st to July 7th is the annual 13 colonies special event. And what you try to do is there are every one of the colonies has a unique radio call sign. K K2A is New York.

James Engelhardt: That's awesome. Okay.

Joe Mahaffey: And it goes all the way down to K2M. You know, they're not in alphabetical order. I'm not really even sure the order that they're in because they're not even in the order that they joined the union. but ⁓ the idea is you want to try to make contact with each of the 13 colonies, and you can do it on any band you want. I'm gonna try to do it with Morse code because I that's just the way I want to do it. But you also have three other people you have to connect with. One is William Penn.

James Engelhardt: Hahaha.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ that's his call sign is like W ⁓ three P E N. And then there's a Great Britain one. So you can there's a Great Britain one, and then there's one other. so anyway, that'll be a game I will be playing because you have seven days or eight, yeah, seven days to connect. And since it's our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary or birthday of the

James Engelhardt: Nice. I was going to say there's got to be something across the pond, Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: The Declaration of Independence, really. so it'll be very exciting. In fact, my HOA has ⁓ approved me to put a flagpole in my front yard that just might have a wire coming out of it.

James Engelhardt: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ there you go. You call it a flagpole, I call it an antenna. Mr. Mahaffey, don't see any flags there, very odd. ⁓ yeah, I usually get collection, like get a meeple flag, get a...

Joe Mahaffey: I followed the rules. ⁓ I'll put a flag on it. I got no problem with that. I I I mean, I'll you know, I'll keep the American flag up there and I'll light it. ⁓ but I have ⁓ yeah, I got a blue ribbon warrior flag too. I'll throw

James Engelhardt: Oh yeah, here we go. Speaking of which, the booty, what is it? There we go, yes.

Joe Mahaffey: Twenty four hours. Twenty four hours of booty. ⁓ which is a bicycle event for those of you who are hearing that phrase and not really sure what that means. Yeah, maybe

James Engelhardt: 24 hours of booty. All right, this is I This doesn't have a mature rating on it. Yeah

Joe Mahaffey: I I am cleared to ride from the doctor with my foot. so yeah, it's the last weekend in July, probably while you're off at Gen Con gallivanting. And ⁓ my team ⁓ is ⁓ we were we were getting close to the top ten of fundraising. you probably got a ⁓ a note from me this week on that.

James Engelhardt: Awesome. ⁓ good. I did?

Joe Mahaffey: is the system will just say who hasn't donated the donated in the past and send them a nice note.

James Engelhardt: So this is a fundraiser for colorectal cancer, right? ⁓ good. OK. Awesome.

Joe Mahaffey: Well, it's it's bigger than that actually. it is the the proceeds go to benefit Levine Children's Hospital and Levine Cancer Institute. and Levine Children's Hospital is where we're gonna be doing that international space station contact later this fall for the from the radio club has nothing to do with this race. But ⁓ but the money that we raise goes there and the and and the Levine Cancer Institute is the ⁓

James Engelhardt: ⁓ OK, cool. No.

Joe Mahaffey: The organization that treated my cancer that I'm almost five years, no evidence of disease on. And also they they did some treatments with my brother when he was alive. So it's a it's an organization that's, you know, where Charlotte's Charlotte's very fortunate to be a medical hub, really. There's lots of great medical ⁓ facilities here, whether you're in cardiovascular distress or cancer or

James Engelhardt: Awesome.

Joe Mahaffey: ⁓ even if you have broken bones. ⁓ they've got an amazing trauma center ⁓ at Atrium and and and Novant as well. They're both stellar hospitals. and but Levine, the Levine family, ⁓ that was the family that ⁓ founded and ran Family Dollar and Mother founded and ran Pick and Pay Shoes, if you remember that old brand. And they have just been great, ⁓

James Engelhardt: ⁓ okay. I do.

Joe Mahaffey: benefactors to the city of Charlotte. A number of museums and in fact, ⁓ I think ⁓ they've even supported like the international Holocaust remembrance at Queen's University and and which is now part of Earth College, I guess. but anyway, it's ⁓ yeah they've they've they they've done great things in Charlotte and Lean Cancer Institute ⁓ is really cool and and the children's hospital and and it's interesting. ⁓ Ryan Seacrest

James Engelhardt: Awesome. ⁓ yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: has a Secrest studio in Levine Children's Hospital because that's what we're doing the ⁓ the broadcast to the satellite or to the International Space Station with and with. So yeah, it's a it's a very interesting facility, ⁓ all the way around. But ⁓ good stuff, good good program. ⁓ the gentleman that I'm r riding with, I'm letting him do all the heavy lifting, Mondo Normile, ⁓ is a leukemia survivor. And he and I've worked for years and he he kicked its ass and ⁓

James Engelhardt: Okay. ⁓ wow.

Joe Mahaffey: He does a good job as the captain of this ⁓ vessel and ⁓ our whole team is pirate themed, which is why when you go to my page, it's all in Pirate Speak. So and ⁓ we we really lean in on the booty kind of in that regard. and there's a couple of events here where where Monday will actually cosplay as a pirate. So I think I need to put together a pirate outfit.

James Engelhardt: That's hilarious. Awesome. Perfect. Yep. ⁓ you got to. Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Mahaffey: So anyway, I could do a SME.

James Engelhardt: Are you

Joe Mahaffey: All right. Well, that's all I got.

James Engelhardt: That's all me, yeah.

Joe Mahaffey: Well, I hope everybody has a great fourth of July and maybe get some gaming in and as per usual, but not, I'm Joe Mahaffey who's bored 'cause I'm not gaming.

James Engelhardt: ⁓ yeah. And I'm James Englehart, hoping that all your tiebreakers break your way and that Joe gets back to the table soon.

Joe Mahaffey: Goodbye, everybody.

James Engelhardt: Bye y'all.