transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:15] Hello, and welcome to episode 359 of the Board Game Barrage podcast. My name is Mark, also known as The Green Tank, and I'm joined, as always, by Kellen the Red Tank.

Speaker 2:
[00:26] Hello.

Speaker 1:
[00:28] Waited for Kellen to start taking his drink when I said that. And Neilan, the Orange Tank. Hello.

Speaker 2:
[00:33] This is anti-water propaganda from you.

Speaker 1:
[00:36] That's true. That's true. Speaking of Neilan and Kellen and myself, I had told you guys this, but a friend of mine started listening to the show and was wondering what would happen if he put in, what are the Board Game Barrage podcast host personalities into chat GBT or something like that? And he sent me the results. I don't know if you guys are interested in hearing about this.

Speaker 3:
[00:59] I would love to hear this.

Speaker 1:
[01:00] Okay. This is the official, this is what the Internet thinks of us using all its acquired knowledge. So the prompt was, what are the personalities of the host of the Board Game Barrage podcast? So it says Kellen, and then in parentheses, the agent of chaos, that is your official title. Yes. Okay. So it says, to the three bullet points, gaming vibe. He's the king of interaction and social friction. If a game doesn't let him mess with the other players, he's usually bored. He lives, quote unquote, mean games, negotiation, and high stakes deduction, social deduction, sorry. Second bullet point, defining loves, innovation, cosmic encounter, I'm the boss, and Cthulhu wars. Finally, the persona. He's the most skeptical of the hotness and modern Kickstarter bloat. More on that later, perhaps. He's quick witted. That was nice.

Speaker 2:
[01:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[01:49] Love's a good bit. Love's a good bit. I think they got you here. And is often the one steering the podcast into hilarious nonsensical tangents. I think all of us would agree on that one.

Speaker 3:
[02:00] Accurate. That is.

Speaker 1:
[02:01] Okay. Mark, they call me in the parentheses, the sharp strategist. I don't know if I love that, but that's fine. Gaming vibe, my gaming vibe. Mark loves tight, interactive euros and games with clever, restrictive economies. That is true. He values efficiency and games that force you to make tough decisions with limited resources. Defining loves. Biblios, the legendary favorite, it says. Haunted Teutonica, the estates and agriklia. I would say haunted Teutonica, not so much anymore, but that's pretty good. The persona. Mark is often the voice of reason of God, isn't that?

Speaker 2:
[02:35] Oh, OK.

Speaker 1:
[02:36] But can be incredibly, but can be incredibly stubborn about his niche favorites. They even use the word niche. He is the most likely to defend a game that others find dry if the mechanics are mathematically beautiful. Oh, look at that. I'm like the beautiful mind guy. Neilan, ready, Neilan?

Speaker 3:
[02:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[02:51] You are in parentheses, the heavyweight specialist.

Speaker 3:
[02:54] Yep. What? Nailed it.

Speaker 1:
[02:57] Gaming vibe. Gaming vibe. Neilan is the fan of quote unquote in bold. This is quote unquote and bolded for the first time. The big game.

Speaker 3:
[03:06] The big game.

Speaker 1:
[03:07] He enjoys complex systems, heavy engine builders, and games that take a long time to master. If a game has a 40 page rule book and a five hour playtime, Neilan is interested.

Speaker 3:
[03:17] That's it. That's me. That's what I always say.

Speaker 1:
[03:20] Defining loves. Feast for Odin through the ages, Gloomhaven and Cedero Confluence. The persona. He's analytical and articulate, often providing the most thorough breakdowns of how a game actually functions. Despite his love for heavy games, he's also a huge fan of Time's Up and party games that involve clever wordplay.

Speaker 3:
[03:40] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[03:41] You and your clever wordplay.

Speaker 3:
[03:42] But yeah, that is that. Yeah. As I say, lustful words.

Speaker 1:
[03:45] There's a Christina bit. I don't know if we want to go over that.

Speaker 2:
[03:48] Does it just say Christina is better than the three of them?

Speaker 1:
[03:52] Christina is the every man enthusiast. That's her title. I'll run through hers real quick. Gaming vibe. Christina often acts as a bridge between the hosts. Her tastes are eclectic and vibes-based. She'll be happy to know that. She enjoys everything from heavy strategy to light thematic experiences along as the fun is present. Defining loves. She's expressed deep love for games like Spirit Island. She's a big Spirit Island player.

Speaker 3:
[04:14] I'm not sure that that's true.

Speaker 2:
[04:16] I don't think that's true. I think we've got an elucidation.

Speaker 1:
[04:22] Positonica and various clever card games. The persona. She joined the main crew a bit later than the original trio and brings a necessary grounding energy to the group. I think that's probably true. She's often the one to call out the others when their bickering becomes too absurd. Although she's just as capable of jumping into the fray.

Speaker 2:
[04:38] That is Christina. That's what I was waiting for. But it should say she's the best at just shutting me down. Or like her favorite pastime on the show is shutting down Kellen.

Speaker 1:
[04:49] There's also a real quick bit that says the group dynamic. So the podcast works best because they are genuine friends who have played hundreds of games together. You often hear and hear the three bullet points. The Kellen versus Mark debate. Kellen wanting chaos and Mark wanting a structured economic puzzle. The Biblio's meme, the ongoing joke mostly fueled by Mark. The Biblio's is a great scheme of made.

Speaker 3:
[05:08] Ongoing joke.

Speaker 1:
[05:08] I don't know if that's a meme. I would not, yeah, that's incorrect. And then the draft episodes where their personalities truly shine as they try to outmaneuver each other in fake auctions, I don't know what that means, or top 50 lists. Anyway, that is what ChatTPT or something has from us using the vast wealth of the internet to come up with who we are.

Speaker 3:
[05:28] Nailed it.

Speaker 1:
[05:28] Neilan, I've been meaning to talk to you about your five-hour game.

Speaker 3:
[05:31] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[05:31] I think it's getting a little out of hand. But that aside, let's talk about today's episode, which will be more fuel for ChatTPT, of course. This came to us, well, actually, it initiated with me last night staring as the Brass Pittsburgh Kickstarter was coming to a close, and wrestling with whether or not I should back it. I won't spoil the outcome, but I went from backing it to canceling the backing, to backing it again, and having a really long, dark moment of the soul. And I consulted the other two guys, and they said, save it for the episode. Figured out later, it's going into overtime. It may still even be active. I don't know how GameFound has their thing, or if it gets a bid in the last 15 minutes, it extends another 15 minutes. Is it still up? I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[06:18] It's still up.

Speaker 1:
[06:18] Do you even know about this?

Speaker 2:
[06:19] It's still up, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[06:20] That's the thing they do? That's weird.

Speaker 2:
[06:21] Yeah, it extends like 15 minutes until someone stops backing it. So it's in like its overdrive mode right now.

Speaker 1:
[06:28] So technically this should have ended something like 20 hours ago, but there have been enough trickling in bids that I could still, maybe our conversation will change my mind, and maybe I'll do the opposite of what I actually did.

Speaker 2:
[06:38] Too many weak-minded people.

Speaker 1:
[06:43] We'll get into that later, but before we do, let's talk about the games that we've been playing. Neilan will talk about Hummingbirds. I will discuss my game of Fendo, and then Kellen will tell us all about Soothsayers. Neilan, Hummingbirds.

Speaker 3:
[06:59] Yeah, so this is a game that I kind of bought on a whim, at least partially, because our beloved moderator, Wagers, seems to have loved it. I saw a rating by Wagers on the BGG page, and I immediately went to Discord to be like, okay, I'm going to buy this, tell me what's all about. For a lot of these little games, for whatever reason, don't flow to the rest of the channels. There are sometimes dedicated like game of the day threads for them. There's a bunch of people who seem to love this little game called Hummingbirds. This is designed by Jason Tremblay, it's published by the ARP, and it is a very light, I'm just going to go ahead and say off the bat, gimmicky little party game where what you're doing, very simply, there is a kind of imagine this kind of like 3D structure with a bunch of opaque tubes. And in each of those tubes of different heights and different colors is a sand timer. Those sand timers go anywhere from 30 seconds if they're like, say the purple ones, all the way up to 10 minutes. There is a single 10-minute timer in the center of this arrangement. You each have two little Hummingbird figures with a magnet on the bottom. And what you're going to do on your turn is either send one of your Hummingbirds to one of these flowers, which are the little sand timers, or check on that sand timer, check on the flower. What that means is at the start of the game you're going to flip all these sand timers, put them into the little tube so that they're hidden, send the Hummingbird out on your turn. The game goes very quickly at pace in which to say that like, you're not supposed to delay, you're not supposed to hesitate on your turn, you move a bird or you pull a timer and it moves very quickly. If you pull the timer and all the sand has run out of that timer, you immediately take a point chip for that timer, flip the timer and put it back. But the faster timers are worth, like let's say, one point for the 30 second timer, all the way up to 25 points for the 10 minute timer. And as soon as one of these piles of points runs out, the game is over. So the game is just about moving your birds, waiting until you think the appropriate amount of time has passed for a given timer, and then checking on it if you're right, putting it back. If you're wrong, you just put the timer back and remove your bird, and you take a point penalty as well, opening that flower up for someone else to grab it from you. So there's this kind of this dance that happens, as people are moving their timers around. I've spoken about this before in the context of other sand timer games where there's a little bit of a rhythm to it. Like you're kind of like picking up a thing, you put it into the purple, someone goes, someone goes, you move your timer, someone goes, someone goes, someone goes, you think 30 seconds have passed, so you're going to pull your bird, take the points, put it back. Meanwhile you're keeping an eye on what other people are doing because they might have just taken their bird off of the one minute timer. So then you're going to put your bird onto that, moving birds, moving birds, picking up small points here and there while you're waiting for the bigger times to fill up. At some point someone goes for the very big ones because they think, oh, surely it's been like 10 minutes at this point. And the thing that's wild about this is it really messes with your perception of time. Like the idea that you'll get five minutes into the game and someone will be like, 10 minutes have definitely passed, 10 minutes have definitely passed. You pull it up and there's barely any time that's gone through the thing is just funny. It moves so quickly. It's very, very silly. It's absolutely a gimmick, but I think it's a very, very good one. In fact, I dare say this might be the best sand timer game, which to be fair is a pretty low bar kind of, but I think this is really, really good for what it is.

Speaker 2:
[10:20] Neilan.

Speaker 3:
[10:21] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[10:22] When I was in second grade and bored because I was so much ahead of my lectures.

Speaker 3:
[10:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[10:29] I would.

Speaker 1:
[10:29] I feel like, I feel a nonsensical tangent is coming.

Speaker 2:
[10:32] I would, I would look at the clock and it would be like 20 seconds or 25 seconds until a minute. And then I would close my eyes and I would say, I'm going to open them when the timer is at right up.

Speaker 1:
[10:47] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[10:48] So what you're saying is, that's the game?

Speaker 3:
[10:51] That's the game. That is the whole game. The game, Kellen, is closing your eyes and opening them when you think that the hand is on the 12. That is the game.

Speaker 2:
[10:59] And how much did you pay for this?

Speaker 3:
[11:01] Oh, I, you could say like a hundred bucks. No, like I...

Speaker 2:
[11:04] This byline, a simple game where you estimate when hidden sand timers are done, exclamation mark got you to spend your money on it.

Speaker 3:
[11:13] I think to be perfectly honest, it's like $30 something like that. It's like, you know, like what you would expect. It's like a small, small game, but again, lovely production values. I will say that this is one of the things that looks really, really lovely on the table. Like it's, to me, this is kind of the perfect sort of example of a game that you, it's like a convention game. It's that thing you talk about where it's kind of like, you want to show it to as many people as possible. I'm not necessarily like hungry to play this again and again and again, but I want to show this game to as many people as possible because it's just got that kind of, you have to check this out. This is neat and weird and you've never played anything quite like it because like I said, even though there are a lot of games have tried to do the sand timer thing, I think they kind of all fall apart for a whole host of different reasons, but this one just being just as slight as it is, means it's also perfectly inoffensive for the gimmick. And again, it looks really, really lovely. It's quite a production.

Speaker 1:
[12:06] This looks like a game that I'd be interested in, especially potentially playing with non-gamers. It's always a niche I'm interested in filling. Let me ask you though, how, because when it comes to sand timer games and games with non-usual components, I'm always worried that they're like, how functional things are. Like, do you find any hiccups with like...

Speaker 3:
[12:25] You mean with like just precision and stuff like that? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[12:29] With the sand timers not fitting incorrectly or any sort of thing like that, I think can really bum out.

Speaker 3:
[12:34] Nothing like that. But Mark, I think you have to realize is that there's like four 30 second timers, there's a bunch of minutes, there's two minutes, there's five minutes. So there's about like 10 to 15 timers in this. And only an absolute nerd or loser would check the time of the timers to make sure that each of them was precise. So that's exactly what I did as I opened the box. And I made sure that all of my timers had perfect precision. I will say I was impressed. I was impressed. They were all like within like an acceptable degree of the advertised time, which I will say like that's all I asked for from a sand timer.

Speaker 1:
[13:09] Sure.

Speaker 3:
[13:10] It's quality.

Speaker 1:
[13:10] Yeah, that's not all what I was sort of getting at, but I'm happy you were able to reveal that side of your personality and your compulsiveness.

Speaker 3:
[13:18] No, production-wise, no. Like actually, if anything, I would say that the way that they've designed, because these are custom sand timers, whatever that means, they're magnetized, obviously top and bottom. The little Hummingbird figurines have a magnet at the top and at the bottom. It all worked pretty seamlessly. I will say there is one production problem, quote unquote, which is it's a real pain to set up and tear down. But once you're in the game, I did not have any problems with it. It functioned pretty much perfectly. You're obviously going to have times where sand timers get stuck and you just never know when you lift them up, but because you're constantly lifting them and jostling them, I feel like that actually helps a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[13:54] Yeah, that was a concern. That's great. Yeah, I'm interested for sure.

Speaker 2:
[13:57] Versus Kites in 20 seconds?

Speaker 3:
[14:00] Yeah, I would say, I mean, Kites obviously being cooperative, Kites is more of a frantic, we're rushing against the clock. This doesn't really have that at all because it's more about you just evaluating the passing of time more than rushing against time because you specifically cannot see the timers. And if you miss a timer, that's not anything. You just have to be past the times, that's the timer. So yeah, it's not stressful in the same way at all.

Speaker 2:
[14:27] Got it. This BGG review, someone started in this temporal based game, which I really like.

Speaker 3:
[14:35] Yeah. I mean, you know I like temporal games.

Speaker 2:
[14:39] All right.

Speaker 3:
[14:39] That's where we are. But yeah, that is Hummingbirds by Jason Tremblay.

Speaker 1:
[14:44] Though I'm not really a big fan of abstracts or really two-player games as a whole, I have been watching the 2026 Candidates, which is a tournament that happens every two years to determine which chess player is going to be taking on the reigning world champ for the title. That is happening right now. And so when a friend of mine, Cameron, suggested we give Fendo a try, I found myself in the right mind space to take him up on it. So Fendo, designed by Dieter Stein and published by Gerhard Spiel und Design. God, I love a good und. Unlike the eight by eight square dimensions of a chessboard, is instead played on a seven by seven square board. So think of the playing space much like a chessboard, but instead of black and white spaces, they are all uniform. They're all this, at least the copy we played, was just like a natural wooden finish. So there's no spaces in that way. Other rules of the game are pretty simple. On your turn, you can either place one of your seven pawns on the board anywhere you like, or you can move your pawn and build a fence. So placing your pawn is pretty self-explanatory. So let's talk about how the moving and fencing works. You move an already placed pawn, like a rook, speaking of chess, in a straight, vertical or horizontal line as far as you want, while being unable to move past any other pawns or any fences. And then along that path, you can make one turn and go as far as you like in that direction. So take your pawn, go as far as you want, 90 degree turn, go as far as you want. That is how movement works. And then wherever you end up with this pawn, on this seven by seven grid, you must lay down a fence on one of the four sides of the square where your pawn finishes. So that's it. That's how the game works. You keep doing that, placing out pawns or moving them, until any pawn is completely fenced in an area by itself, then that pawn can no longer be activated. So if a pawn finds itself completely fenced in, it is done. You don't touch it anymore. You're one pawn short for the rest of the game. When all the areas aboard have been fenced in in such a manner, the game ends. Then each player counts up how many spaces they control. Control in this scenario being defined as all the fenced in spaces in a location where a player has their pawn, pretty self-explanatory or what you would imagine the scoring would work. And that's it. That's how Fendo works. This game really has everything that I want in an abstract two player game. Extremely easy to teach, seems extremely easy to play. And it is until you start realizing the tactics and the strategy inherent in the game. I think you could very easily play this game in 15-20 minutes, but I think most games, at least the ones I play, would go longer just because there's so many interesting things to think about on your turn. Not that I think that this is a game especially prone to analysis paralysis. I think at most, again, you'll have seven pawns on the board to consider. And even then, often a few of them will either be like inactive because they've been fenced in, or you'll quickly realize that they're not ones you want to be moving this round. So it's not a game where you're overwhelmed by decision. I just love how much depth there was in this game that is otherwise so straightforward. So yeah, for any listeners who are interested in games like Chess or TAC or Boop or the GIPF series of games, any of those abstract two-player games, I would wholeheartedly recommend checking this out. Again, Fendo by Dieter Stein and published by Gerhard Spiehl Wanted Design.

Speaker 3:
[18:00] It's funny, I think this is one of the... I'm trying to see if it's exactly the same thing, but this looks very similar to one of the games that was prominent in the latest season of Devils, I think they called it Wall Go. I'm trying to see if it's exactly the same thing. It looks pretty much close as a match to that, which is... I remember watching that and thinking, oh, that looks cool. I would totally play that, but it didn't seem to be a game that was publicly available. But maybe it is just this, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1:
[18:27] I know this game is from a number of years ago, so I think it would definitely precede Devils playing. But yeah, this is a game, I don't know who would sit down and not really like this game. I mean, I can see people not loving it because they don't like two-player abstracts, but it's just so easy to teach and so intuitive and yet really opens up once you start playing it, that I just really, really enjoyed it. I think, especially for abstract two-player fans, it's a no-brainer. Kellen, Soothsayers.

Speaker 2:
[18:53] All right, Neilan and I were invited to a media event. Mark was not invited, I just want that on the record, to look at some Play-to-Z games. And so, yeah, this is not a review copy, but we played it under duress. Soothsayers is a engine building card game that uses a lead and follow system that I really, really like. And essentially, the game uses a tarot card sort of theme and a tarot card deck. Everyone starts with four cards of level one. Those cards are earn, draft, ascend, and capture. And so, earn is just getting you money. Draft is letting you get new cards to replace the cards to level up the four colors, suits that you have in front of you. Ascend is the action that lets you upgrade with the cards that you have in your hand to sort of go from level one to level two, or from level two to level four on one of those actions. And capture, the red suit is how you get tarot cards, which are sort of special abilities. And so, the ascending is sort of like, instead of earning four coins, you earn five coins every time you take the earn action. And the way the mechanism works is, I would put the crystal ball down and I say, I'm using earn with my level one card. And then every other player would be able to follow that action if they want to. And if they are a lower level on that card type, they would have to pay me the difference. So if I was level four in capture and I was taking a level four capture action, and Neilan was level two, he would have to pay me two coins in order to also follow that capture action. And each card has what you get for leading with that action and what you get for following, which is a lesser power. And then you are essentially buying tarot cards in order to modify and get powers for each of those types of actions. So you have to place a tarot card underneath. I got one called, I think it was the Sun that doubled my earning potential. So I had a high earning big money strategy and I bought the tarot card that just doubled what I earned, which, you know, elicited groans from everyone at the table. It just seemed categorically unfair. And the way the game works, which is great and interactive, is you are collecting these fate tokens, that some that you just trade for money, where they get more and more expensive. But whoever has the highest on any of their normal suit cards, if you have the highest red card, you have a temporary victory condition of that card. So if someone gets to the same level, you don't have to give it to them. But if they get to the next level, you have to give it to them. And same thing with the four tarot cards. So there are eight floating victory points, basically. And in the four to five player game we were playing, you only needed five fate tokens to win. So it was a combination of building an engine, buying a fate token while it was cheap, but then also trying to jostle and be higher than other folks and build a better combo engine. This is also done with a really cool art style and theme. I think there's actual tarot art from some public domain tarot decks going on in here. So there's a little bit of a cult and the devil, and I don't really know what the f*** is going on in here. But very interconnected card game that just sort of was a lot more than we thought it was going to be when we went into it. Neilan, what did you think about Soothsayers?

Speaker 3:
[22:20] Yeah, I think at its core, what you're describing is at least a little bit like Race for the Galaxy, a little bit Deck Builder-y to some degree, which is all ingredients that I like, but I've never quite seen them put together quite like this. And I think that it having that sort of very constant back and forth, where, like you said, these eight floating points, you kind of look at your pool and like, okay, I'm at four. If I just do this one thing, I can grab the fifth and then win. But then someone gets a higher card from you, and then now they have a point up on you, and you have to pivot around that. That core in itself is lovely, but I think the thing that really, really sells us from the are those tarot cards. Kellen just described one of the cards, which is that Sun card, but all of the tarot cards seem to have really powerful things that you'd look at and be like, oh my God, that's crazy. If you do this one thing a couple of times, you just get a permanent victory point. And it just suddenly seems like, now I know what my path to victory is, as long as I just get this tarot card. And then of course, someone takes that tarot card from you, and then you have to pivot to a different path to victory. And then a new, more powerful tarot card comes out, because the deck is slightly gradiated, and the second half is more powerful than the first half. So it just has this lovely moment of looking at these cards and being like, wow, that seems amazing. And this is gonna synergize so well with, Kellen and I were building up the Urn cards in particular. Other people are building up their Ascend cards in particular. So then they will get tarot cards that synergize with that strategy. And it just has those moments where you find those combos those combinations that really worked quite well. It's quite interactive. It just kind of felt like it had a lot going on for otherwise a fairly simple game. Like this is not really that complex at all. But like there's a lot of seemingly a lot of depth in the combinations that you could unlock and the like the order that you upgrade your cards.

Speaker 2:
[24:10] Yeah, I could see players who don't want anyone to touch their things to dislike the sort of short victory points moving around. And then also your ability to like just one up someone or use a tarot card in a way that like absolutely hurts one person. This has Glory to Rome vibes, innovation vibes, in a way that doesn't feel as like chaos. But like I can imagine someone just saying, I will never play this at five players or even I will never play it at four players. Because it's just sort of like you're in it for the experience of all these cards sort of going around. But it's like really elegant, which is not something that happens very often. So I was particularly impressed by this.

Speaker 3:
[24:52] Yeah, same. I really was too. The player count thing is interesting because I do think like I'd be curious to see like how well this works at like, let's say two or three players. Like I suspect you're definitely right that you probably want less just to reduce the chaos of it. But you obviously also just naturally reduce the interaction to some degree. Maybe not, maybe I'm wrong. But like, I'd be curious to see how this plays out too, actually. That's interesting to me.

Speaker 1:
[25:15] I hate to further boost Kellen's chances to get Dark Pact more. Dark Pact, Dark Pact. But is this playing in the same space as Dark Pact?

Speaker 3:
[25:25] I will say I was definitely immediately reminded of Dark Pact. And I think one thing in particular, right, which is just that like it's that thing I described of like Dark Pact is you see your path to victory and then you go all in on it, right? Soothsayers felt like that a little bit. So it definitely reminded me of that feeling of like a card comes out, you're like, oh, this is it. This is how I win. And then you like, yeah, you have that feeling like multiple times a game, you know?

Speaker 1:
[25:49] Yeah, the mechanics don't sound the same obviously at all. But from your descriptions, it had the same sort of like, oh, big combo, big attack here. I can I can sort of exploit this vibe to it. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[26:02] It's interesting. I did not think of Dark Pact, but I can see this sort of like vibiness of it. But it's also like an engine builder or a deck builder is much more of a like, I do my thing, you do your thing. I know Dark Pact has, you know, the mechanisms where you're interacting. This was very much like you, Neilan, for going to four in red. Like I was about to do that. I hate you now forever. And then, oh, by the way, you're stealing this card. Like, I think it's more it's more directly confrontation.

Speaker 3:
[26:35] That's definitely true. Like, yeah, if your metric is interaction, it's not that similar at all. But yeah, it was, there was something about the feel of it. I think that definitely.

Speaker 2:
[26:44] Yeah. But I think, but I would, I mean, like, I will buy this. I think it's out of stock right now. Like there's no question that, and again, for the like length, you know, Oh baby, we we've got a stew going with this one. Like, like there's, this is, this is the real deal.

Speaker 3:
[26:59] Which we should say is about like 45 minutes. So like very, very breezy.

Speaker 1:
[27:03] So people can forget about dark pack and just go.

Speaker 2:
[27:05] No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1:
[27:07] That's what sounds like you're saying.

Speaker 2:
[27:08] This proves the supremacy of cards. Like people.

Speaker 1:
[27:12] Over what?

Speaker 2:
[27:13] Over boards.

Speaker 1:
[27:13] What is it?

Speaker 2:
[27:14] Over boards.

Speaker 1:
[27:15] Cards over boards.

Speaker 2:
[27:17] Yeah, you don't need them.

Speaker 1:
[27:17] They are fighting.

Speaker 2:
[27:18] Yeah, they've been in an eternal struggle and the tarot was there the whole time. Okay, like what do you Mark, your Ouija board man over there? I'm going to tell on you to my bishop.

Speaker 1:
[27:29] I don't like to fight against the spirits.

Speaker 2:
[27:31] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:33] The nature of the spirits. Yeah, difficult. Difficult to get past.

Speaker 2:
[27:36] That was Soothsayers, a game that I believe is out of stock. I believe it's on BGA, but please don't.

Speaker 3:
[27:42] What is worth, Kellen, I'm definitely seeing, it seems like it's available on Amazon at least.

Speaker 2:
[27:48] We don't get money from Amazon. Why are you saying Amazon, Neil?

Speaker 3:
[27:51] Sorry, sorry.

Speaker 2:
[27:52] Oh, it's available. Wait, where do we get the money from? Re-delivery tomorrow. Okay, here we go.

Speaker 3:
[27:55] I don't think it's that unavailable.

Speaker 2:
[27:58] I'm buying. All right, thank you.

Speaker 1:
[28:01] You should buy all the copies corner of the market and then.

Speaker 2:
[28:04] Oh yeah, and then release the episode. Respect, respect. Yes, great game. Really enjoyed it. Buying it while we record. I never multitask. I'm always with you guys. I just want that to be clear.

Speaker 3:
[28:17] Someone has to do the research.

Speaker 1:
[28:19] Before we go on to our main topic, just a reminder, a couple of ways you can help the show out. Obviously, if you enjoy what you're listening to and you want to listen to more, you can join our Patreon at patreon.com/boardgamebarrage or boardgamebarrage.com/patreon. We release a couple of bonus episodes each month. And there are other perks like joining our patrons only Discord. I would say that if you're a fan of Plays, Broadway, that whole thing, I would say definitely it's worth it for that because every time I go in there, there is a lot of Broadway and stage talk in there. So there's a lot of other conversations as well, but that seems to be a pretty rich vein right now. And we have the annual Game Night at My House at Dicetower West. That's another perk of being a Patreon member. So a lot of fun things about that. So you can do that again at the sites I mentioned. Otherwise, if you'd like, you can just leave us a review wherever you found the show. We always like seeing those pop up. They help spread the word and they're always nice to sort of read. So that also does a great deal of good if you're so inclined. So thank you in advance for doing either of those. All right, on to the main topic. So let me set the scene. 11.45, I think. I'm not actually sure about the time, but let's say 11:45 PM. Last night, Las Vegas, Nevada, the couch. I'm sitting on it, laptop on my lap as it's named. I'm putting it in the correct space on my lap, as you should do with laptops.

Speaker 2:
[29:44] Do we need a content warning?

Speaker 1:
[29:48] That's for the Patreon. I'm going to redo this. Like the after dark version in the Patreon. So that's another reason to shell over your flybuck. Anyhow, so laptop on my lap, room completely dark, everybody's asleep, all black. The only light is coming off the laptop into my face. Very eerie, very solemn moment. And on the screen, game pound page for Brass Pittsburgh. And I'm like, okay, I'm just opening this up because I'm definitely doing this. Got the credit card ready. We're back in this because I'm not much of a Kickstarter backer, as long time listeners of the show will know. But Brass Pittsburgh, that's a no brainer even for me. You know, this is a game that I love. Roxley, the publisher, has done fantastic work in terms of the presentation, the production, everything is fantastic. And I put the credit card number in, get ready to hit pledge. And then I think to myself, should I do this? And so before we go into things in depth, I want to just acknowledge that my circumstance is different than Kellen's, is different than Neilan's, is different than any of the listeners out there. So dynamics, I think, will change from person to person, depending on what your game collection is, like how prominent board games are in your life, you know, financial situations, all those kinds of things will all play a part. And the answer and the whatever is going to be different for everybody. But I think it is instructive and interesting to talk about how we acquire games, a Kickstarter game found maybe more specifically in the case of Brass Pittsburgh, but just that in general, because I'll just go through my thinking at the time. And maybe you guys can chime in with your own or how you handle, because I know we all took our sort of own different path when it came to specifically backing Brass Pittsburgh, but maybe what that means for what we feel like about Kickstarters or these like crowdfunding games. Anyway, so for me, Brass Pittsburgh, I was pretty confident I'm going to like the game. I mean, I'm pretty confident that I'm going to like another version of Brass. I'm a big fan of Brass Lancashire, but I'm also a big fan of Brass Birmingham. And I have, as I said, loved the Roxley productions. I think they're fantastic. They're absolutely wonderful. However, there is the fact that I personally have not seen any gameplay footage of Brass Pittsburgh, you know, and there may be a rulebook, but I have not looked into that myself. Maybe then that's obviously on me. And then there's also the price tag. And again, this is a different everybody, but it's $125, which is, I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[32:16] Well, that's what the Collector's Edition to be clear.

Speaker 1:
[32:18] For the Collector's Edition, that's a very good point. That's a very good point and more on that as well. But for the high end, there's two levels, right? In terms of like the actual game itself, there's the Collector's Edition and what will be the Retail Edition. Is that correct?

Speaker 3:
[32:30] Yeah, I believe so.

Speaker 1:
[32:31] Yes. So you could back this for the Collector's Edition, which is, for those who don't know, like the most blinged out, well, not actually the most blinged out version, but a quite blinged out version of the game. It has, you know, res in this and like, interestingly, unlike the release of Brass Birmingham and Lancashire in the previous Roxley crowdfunding versions of the game, they do not contain the iron clays in and of themselves. Those came included in those editions, but they don't come in Brass Pinsir, but otherwise, again, very, very tricked out. A lot of stretch goals with Metzl, like a lot of really nice production. So that's 125. Speaking of Brass, Wanker and Birmingham from a couple of years ago when they did that, I looked back at my pledge for that and that was incredibly, I think, $99 for both games in the high-end version with the iron clay poker chips. And so, I don't know, I thought to myself, is this something that I really want to back at this price point? And as Neilan brought up, there was the idea of the retail edition, which is much cheaper. I don't know what if it's like $60, maybe one of you guys can take a look at it, or $70. I think it's $79. $79, okay. So, still, it's still quite pricey in my estimation for a game, especially when it's not the upgraded edition. And, you know, I got to me to thinking about a lot of things. Maybe I should save some of that for later, but just I was thinking about how I have dealt with games that were crowdfunded, that I didn't back, and then found myself seeking out later, and what that was like, because a big part of me, and I'll just say what I did, I ended up not backing it, and I guess I could still back it technically because it's in overtime or whatever, but I ended up not backing it because of my past experiences. Again, I'll get into it later, getting games that I initially did not back. And then there's the whole question of like, if you're going to get a game, if you know you're going to, if I know I'm going to get Brass Pittsburgh, why put it off? Why would I ever consider getting the retail edition? If I know I'm going to love it, why not just get the collector's edition now? Anyway, so I, in the end, did not back it. So maybe you guys can briefly talk about where you landed specifically on Brass Pittsburgh, and then maybe we can open up to like, just crowdfunding and our philosophies and how they've evolved in general.

Speaker 2:
[34:45] Sure. Yeah. I think, look, it changes, right? And again, I think you've given the caveat, but I'll give the caveat again, which is that even my own economic situation has changed since we started the podcast. In profound, I'm now in adult adult ways, you know, when we started the podcast, I was but a child. And so I'll lay my cards on the table. Mark Mark told you a story about a late night with his laptop and no one else around in the dark. And I'll just I'll be more explicit than that. I have backed Brass Lancashire only the like deluxe deluxe deluxe edition. Now, is it possible that I could acquire that later for less money? Maybe I don't know how these things work, you know, with the shipping, but like it's going to be obnoxious to figure out how to get it when I can just get it here. And the math that goes into that decision is I do not need three versions of brass. And actually, I will go farther than that. No one and I repeat, no one on earth needs three versions of brass. I actually believe that I legitimately believe that, which is to say that any board game hobbyist would be better off having some variety of games than by repurchasing what are sensibly variants of brass. And so then it becomes which version of brass do you want? And I spent some time in Pittsburgh, and so I was like, man, I really want this, but every...

Speaker 3:
[36:17] Just the way you said that made it sound like you spent some time in Pittsburgh in research. So I went to Pittsburgh. Oh, for the game.

Speaker 2:
[36:25] Yes, yes. And Pittsburgh is clearly the Eurohead brass. And again, I like the system. And so Neilan's got Birmingham for him, for his Care Bearer, and then the people who want to be even more Care Bearer can go to Pittsburgh. And the rest of us know that the best one is Lancashire. I would love to play Pittsburgh, let's be clear. But again, like limited shelf space, like I think that people delude themselves into just like collecting everything. And again, if you want everything, get everything. But these are like, I think these are closer to like map packs than the, and you know, just the like context of like putting them all on your shelf. You know, let's put iron clays in each of them. It's like, oof, I don't know guys. And again, but all that to say, like here I am proclaiming this very loudly when like earlier in the campaign, I was thinking maybe I'll just get all three of them. Like I literally was thinking that. So I am not, you know, what is it? The sinner with stone, you know, like throw stones at me too. But where I have netted out, I have a copy of Lancashire. I am annoyed that I still have this copy of Lancashire and my board has not been upgraded to no glare. It's just blinding my eyes constantly. I need this new version to deliver. That's where I'm at.

Speaker 3:
[37:45] Yeah, and like for my part, I'm the person that sort of most needs, I guess, correction in Kellen's ways here. Like I didn't do all three, but like I did something that's ostensibly pretty silly, I suppose, which is that I have Birmingham. I have the previous Deluxe version of Birmingham. But it's one of my favorite games. It's a top 10 game for me. So I saw the opportunity to be like, yeah, I will jump on the new Deluxe version of Birmingham. I will find time to sell my old Birmingham Deluxe, of course. But I also really want to try Pittsburgh. And especially in a world where like Kellen had maybe sort of convinced himself that he wasn't going to back Pittsburgh. He's like, yeah, I'll get this. I agree with Kellen that I don't need two copies of Brass. So my intent would be to play Pittsburgh, see how I feel, how it nets out versus Birmingham, and then keep one of them. I have no intention of keeping both, but I did back both Birmingham and Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1:
[38:42] It's interesting because knowing it sounds like less about Pittsburgh and its gameplay, I guess I'd heard that it was more unified than the other two. I find myself not so opposed to having all three, if this one is more unified, although that makes me less inclined to want it at all, and so maybe that is reinforcing my decision. But it makes me think, so one of the options you can get in this game found and correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you can get the new version of all three.

Speaker 2:
[39:11] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[39:11] So like, yes, so in fact, I just realized we should have done that, we should have figured it out between us, Kellen, to just do the multi-packable three.

Speaker 2:
[39:20] Are we saving, are we not saving?

Speaker 3:
[39:21] We are saving money by doing that.

Speaker 2:
[39:23] Neilan, why didn't you talk to me?

Speaker 3:
[39:26] Well, we still have time, we still have overtime.

Speaker 2:
[39:28] Oh, we have overtime, we can fix this.

Speaker 1:
[39:30] Oh, see, look at that, we're making things happen in real time, I love it, I love it. And I gotta tell you, like, seeing that option of all three, and having that be a consideration in my mind for even a second, is what made me sort of like immediately lash out the other way. Like, when I saw that, and I thought to myself, yeah, I should do that. Like, a minute later, I'm like, what am I talking about? Like, I have the other two, I don't even know if I want the third one. And now I'm all of a sudden finding myself in a mindset where like, I need to get all three because they like look alike or whatever. And just like, as soon as that thought entered my head and filled the brain space, I immediately like viscerally shrunk from it and said, well, no, no, no, I'm not doing this. And in fact, I'm not doing any of it. Like that was the impetus to like go in the other direction. So I don't know that sort of just, and I don't know how insidious it was for them to do this, to offer like a newer version to maybe like ride the FOMO training or ride the like, I need everything to look alike sort of mindset. But just the idea that is one of the things that got me going the other direction.

Speaker 3:
[40:34] I mean, we have to acknowledge that that's obviously quite deliberate on their part, right? Like the intent is they want people to feel like, no, the only way to own all three in matching editions is to do it now and to do it for the special prize. It's the Queen Games strategy with the city games, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[40:52] It's actually interesting that you mentioned Queen Games because when it came time for me to figure out whether or not I was going to back it, or whether or not the FOMO was going to be crushing, was thinking about the Steffenfeld Queen Games city Kickstarter or Game Founder ever was, where they had a bunch of his older games, a number of them out of print, being re-implemented in new designs with more uniform boxes and much more deluxified editions. Also made me think about Lucerta Games, which have never had this specifically happen with them, where they are all re-released with new editions. But Lucerta Games are quite pricey when it comes to, when they're initially released, and are big editions and there is a completionist feeling sometimes to acquiring all of them because they're always these big boxes by Eagle Griffin. Finally, made me think of Great Western Trail, when recently there was a Great Western Trail, Argentina and New Zealand. Honestly, I think that if they were doing that, maybe now seeing the brass situation, where brass is like over $7 million, maybe they would have released them in deluxeified versions like a deluxe Argentina and deluxe New Zealand and deluxe whatever, deluxe Great Western Vanilla Edition, whatever. So I was thinking about all that. And I've brought this up before, way, way back when we first started talking about Kickstarters and my philosophy on them, which was like, I always think about when I get this FOMO feeling about Kickstarters, I always think about Blood Rage and how hot it was when it first came out and how you sort of needed to have it. And there was that big rush where I felt like if I didn't get it, I would be losing out. And now years later, Blood Rage is relatively easy to get. And that initial desire seems kind of like overblown and maybe silly is too strong a word. And where I am now was the Queen games with the Stephen Feld games. I don't have them, but it's not really bothering me. Any of the sort of games that I've sort of wanted, I've been able to get on the secondary market generally for less or traded for them. And so thinking about all that ultimately made me back off Pittsburgh. And yet I'm still sort of torn because again, it is a game that I know that I'm going to like. And there are the questions of the retail edition, like how many people actually back the retail edition when you can almost certainly probably get it, assuming it's available, get it cheaper when it comes out on retail. And is that even an option? And what is that even all about? Even offering a retail edition when the game found page is otherwise splashing all these extra bits and you sort of feel silly for backing a lesser version when there are all these stretch goals being met. So I guess a thing I'd like to sort of discuss is like how we've evolved from when we started the podcast to where we are now when it comes to crowdfunding. So I'll start by saying like I was, I think the least crowdfunding of us when we started, I probably maybe still am, but I have had peaks and valleys where I've backgamed, and I was not inherently against crowdfunding Pittsburgh. I didn't think there was going to be a definite no on that. But yeah, I guess I wound up in the same place. How have you guys changed over the years since we started doing the show in terms of crowdfunding?

Speaker 3:
[43:56] Sorry, I got distracted by Kellen flooding our admin channel with pictures of various people's overblown collections. I think he's trying to make a point, but I haven't quite got there yet.

Speaker 2:
[44:07] This is my, and I think I've talked about this in the bonus episodes a couple of times. There's a subreddit called Consume, which is C-O-N-S-O-O-M. These are what people see. So I have posted a picture of an E Ink tablet collection, and there's like 40 of them here. A girl with 30 pairs of black boots, a guy with Funko Pops just filling up the walls of his house, someone with the Yeti or the Ouala drink containers, and they have an entire wall full of them, someone who has like 20 pairs of different types of headphones, the like AirPod headphones, someone who has a Cologne collection, that there's like at least 100 in the picture, and then this last one is someone who has over 40 copies of JD Salinger's The Catcher and The Rye, different versions of it. And I need this subreddit, and I'm not lying to you, because I would say once a month, once a month, I get the idea that like, I should own every Pokemon game complete in box. Literally, I'm not kidding you, once a month, I get this urge. And then I go look at pictures of people who have done it, and I'm like, yeah, I want that. But then like Mark, your board game collection is these images.

Speaker 1:
[45:25] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[45:26] And my board game collection is too, to be fair. You just have 4X me, but you have 4X space. So it's like, I get that board games are for playing, and there is a difference here, but you can't, even if you stop now, Mark, I actually want to know, you quit your life, you quit your job, you did nothing, you ignored Rizel, you ignored us. How long would it take to play everything that's in your house?

Speaker 1:
[45:51] I mean, the big problem would be, oh look, your point stands already before I even defend myself. Your point is correct. I have found myself moving more towards solo games just for that very issue, because it is clear that even if I stop now and play games no matter what, even if I, the big problem would be having the people here, having everybody else stop their life, not end their life.

Speaker 2:
[46:13] End their life.

Speaker 1:
[46:15] Have everybody else stop their lives to play games. Even then, it would be probably a hard task to accomplish. And so I've gotten solo games for that. But yes, even then, even with the solo games, yes, it's not likely a feasible outcome where all these games get played.

Speaker 2:
[46:31] And so it just becomes this like weird question of like, to what end? And again, I'm not a saint here. I bought a game while we were recording this podcast, so maybe I'm the exact opposite. I was, I was, it's just, oh, I don't know. I think that the problem actually that I have is that the industry only exists because of collectors. Not only, but like that the amount of output that everyone makes, it only works because people are buying to display them as much as they are to like. And so it's like, when you have a game like Brass, where there's just three versions of the same thing, and it's like, even putting all the boxes next to each other on the shelf, it like reminds me of like the discussion they're having around like autonomous vehicles right now, which is like, that your vehicle stays at your house. A personal vehicle is in use for like 10% of its time, right? You drive to work, then it sits there for seven to eight hours, then you drive it home. And if no one owned a car, but all the cars on the road were just like a fleet, each car could be in use 60 to 70% of the time, and you would need a lot less cars. So the idea that like in each of our houses, there's like, you know, 400 dice or like, you know, card, again card, but there's so many components that are just like, they're literally wasting space and production and whatever. That's not always the case. And again, I love my board game collection, but it's like, it's not, I don't know. I probably have backed more things than like, yeah. Let's go, what have I backed guys? I backed the Tricktakers expansion recently. I backed the Samurai re-implementation. I backed Rhinelander, which is part of the Raw the Dice game. I backed anime game that I should not have backed that I'm trying to get out of right now. Lifeboat, which delivered. So yeah, I've backed, I'm backing like maybe one thing every other month, maybe. So not that many, unless now we gotta get on Game Found. So yeah, I think, again, I think that more of it has to do with my own economic changes than my like, I think I'm less into Kickstarter now than I ever have been in my life. But yeah, that's where I'm at.

Speaker 3:
[48:49] Yeah, I definitely slowed down. Like I think there was, I couldn't tell you what year it was kind of peaked for me. I kind of felt that was a period of time where I had multiple Kickstarters arriving every month. And that was, I mean, some of that might have just been like delayed shipping on stuff from like previous years. But like regardless, I slowed to the point that I'm like, basically, I'd probably like backing something once every two months, maybe. So like every other month, as Kellen said, is probably about right for me. And some of that is quite deliberate, which is like, I think I'm very specifically, I will just as often as always pull up a Kickstarter page and be like, I should just back this. But I talk myself down from that cliff, so to speak, of just like not backing something just on the whim because I think it happens to look cool. And unfortunately, I'm not as diligent as I used to be about like reading rule books for things or anything like that, like get a real sense of whether it's something I'm going to enjoy. So a lot of it is kind of just based on vibes, maybe watching a YouTube here or there. But a lot of times like those bets don't pay off. I mean, that's the thing that you've said countless times on this podcast, Mark. Like it's just it's not something the way your hit rate is generally very high, generally with Kickstarters. But I've just gotten to the point now where I want to be more specific about it. I mean, like, okay, I'm fairly confident that this is something I'm going to enjoy. Therefore, I will back it. And I've already, you know, as recently as for example, this is this is no shade at the game Britwalder, which I have not played yet, but that arrived by a Kickstarter like two months ago. And I've still not really properly like made a point to try to play it. Like it's just sometimes that just kind of feels like, oh, I don't have the excitement. Like this is again, I think Kellen has said this is sentence verbatim, but like you'll never be more excited about the game than the moment you click, like pledge on it on Kickstarter. Right. Like that's where you're at the peak. This is the most I want to play that game. And one year later, how much am I going to want to play Brass Pittsburgh? Like, I mean, probably a lot, but like, you know, it's just like one of those weird things that's hard to evaluate in reality. You know, like how long will it be before I play Brass Pittsburgh after getting it? Which is funny, because like the thing I was going to say in response to something you said earlier was like, it's really hard to evaluate these things pragmatically. And I think that's true of all possession, all ownerships, anything you could have in your house. It's not a pragmatic evaluation, like most of the time. Sometimes the reason to get in on the Kickstarter, I would say, is foremost, it's zeitgeist-y. It's like you want to be playing it at the time that everyone else is playing it. You want to sort of be an early adopter. You want to be one of the in-people that's playing this game at the same time as everyone else. You know, like that is a lot of the feeling I think that drives people to back things on Kickstarter versus we're just simply waiting for them at retail. Obviously, there's the fear of missing out on value. Like, if I get this now, it will be cheaper, which is very rarely ever the case despite what any Kickstarter page ever tells you. So, yeah, it's just complicated. Like, I mean, I'm also not immune to the idea of collection and honing a collection to some degree. Like, this is stupid, but the example of this recently is like we're reading like these Dark Tower books as a book club. I bought book one and two as paperbacks. I kind of decided I'm going to want to read the whole series. So then I bought a box set collection of the whole thing despite owning one and two because I wanted to have a collection of all seven of them that looked nice on a shelf, you know? That's not a good reason to repurchase books I already own, but like I'm not immune to that feeling of just wanting it to look nice in the context of my home. So I get it when people are like, well, if I have all these Stefan Feld games, they may as well be the eight versions that look identical and look nice when you line them up together on my shelf. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know. It's a weird thing. It's very hard to like evaluate for any one person.

Speaker 1:
[52:30] Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, it's hard to make any sort of blanket statement or recommendation. And for what it's worth, as Kellen said, I'm not going to be the one to throw stones because there should be a lot thrown at me. And I'll also even go further in saying, I think in general, it's probably a good sign that Brass is at 8 million or 7 million dollars an hour. Because first of all, like, if people want to pay it, then they can pay it and they're right. I mean, for a lot of people, it's a totally fine decision to make for sure. And maybe it's a sign of the health of the industry. If a game can reach this much money, maybe that's a good thing, you know.

Speaker 3:
[53:03] Especially, I should say, like, a game that is, I'm not going to say objectively, but like, is a well-designed, good, meaty, gamery strategy game. For like it to be doing too well, that's a good thing.

Speaker 1:
[53:17] Yeah, yeah. On the whole, that's a good sign for the state of the industry, I would probably say.

Speaker 2:
[53:25] Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that.

Speaker 3:
[53:26] Well, to some degree. It's better this than like something else that we all know, well, that game is garbage, right? Like that's kind of what I mean. From our perspective, like it's like, yeah, well, we're good with it being brass, I suppose.

Speaker 2:
[53:39] I guess you're having to like do the math on amount of backers versus price.

Speaker 3:
[53:44] Because that's fair.

Speaker 2:
[53:45] This is 4,800 backers, Scythe had 17,000. So like, yeah, everything got more expensive and these games are like ultra deluxe, but I don't know that that.

Speaker 3:
[53:57] That's very, very valid.

Speaker 2:
[53:58] I don't know. Yeah, I am happy that good games are getting. Yes, I'm happy. I want to play brass Pittsburgh. I'm happy it exists. I'm not. That's fair. That's a fair point.

Speaker 1:
[54:10] I would say if brass Pittsburgh was at $500,000, I would be like, oh, that's a bad sign, not only for the game, but just in general for board games. Yes, I think that would squash the potential for innovation because people will be like, well, there's nothing. There's no money in it at all. Not that there is now, but I just think there's a good sign.

Speaker 3:
[54:30] I might just ask you a question.

Speaker 1:
[54:31] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[54:32] Which is, Mark, one thing I'd be curious to ask you is, if this didn't get you, what would?

Speaker 1:
[54:38] Yeah, that's a good question because that's also a thing I was thinking about because when I decided not to back it, I thought to myself, well, I was just looking, as you guys were talking, I've backed a total of how many games do you think I've backed since 2016 in 10 years?

Speaker 3:
[54:51] I'm going to guess under, certainly under 20.

Speaker 1:
[54:54] The number is 14. I've backed 14 games. And I looked at them and then for the most part, a lot of games have left my collection, a couple have been outright stinkers and a couple I'm happy with. So I think the hit rate has been maybe one third where it's like out and out positive. But like you said, if it's not going to be Pittsburgh, what is it going to be? I think, I don't know, for whatever reason, I didn't shut the laptop, which I did immediately after not backing Pittsburgh, Kellen. You'll be happy to know there was nothing else going on after the Pittsburgh situation. I immediately shut it. But I thought to myself, well, I didn't necessarily think like I'm never going to back a game. That was not my feeling afterwards. I just think that the idea of backing a game being like a sort of necessity into backing an entire collection of games, was what sort of bothered me. And it was tough with Brass because I know inflation, I know the price of production has gone up. I understand that. I don't necessarily feel like they've like overinflated the price. But the fact that I got two versions of a game that I love a couple of years ago for $100 combined, and then this one is by itself, which is unproven for $125. I know that it's not a big deal, but that also sort of rubbed me the wrong way. So I think, I think if there was like a new Kenizia or a new Martin Wallace or something like that, that I felt confident in, that was deluxified, that I didn't feel like I needed to get all three or all five or like this was whatever. I think I would still be game for that. I think that would still like be potentially exciting and something I would get behind. But yeah, so yeah, I think there's still possibility for me to back games. I don't think that the door's been shut on that, but it was sort of stark for me to not back this one. When I sort of assumed from the get go that I would be.

Speaker 3:
[56:35] Three words Mark, Biblio's to Deluxe.

Speaker 1:
[56:40] I mean, that would be an insta back for me. And again, it has been floated. I've mentioned this in the last episode. There has been talks that there will be a new version of Biblio's coming out. So that is an insta back. I don't care if they forced me to buy like the Biblio's dice and Biblio's parchment and quill or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[56:56] Metal Biblio's dice.

Speaker 1:
[56:58] That's right. I've got to go full all in on that. So that is going to do it for the show. Why not go to our Discord at boardgamebarrage.com/discord, go to the podcast channel and maybe specifically, let us know where you landed if you want on Brass Pittsburgh, or where you have gone in your crowdfunding games journey, headspace, whatever.

Speaker 2:
[57:20] Don't call it a journey. Why is everything a journey now?

Speaker 1:
[57:24] What's wrong with a journey?

Speaker 2:
[57:25] It's not everything is a journey. Like I've lost 10 pounds in the last couple of months. It's not a journey. It's not a weight loss journey.

Speaker 1:
[57:32] You are currently on a weight loss journey.

Speaker 2:
[57:33] No, I mean like-

Speaker 1:
[57:35] I disagree.

Speaker 2:
[57:35] We're doing disservice to the people of old who actually went on journeys.

Speaker 1:
[57:41] Okay, well, your experiences, your fluctuating state of being, whatever you want to call it, let us know in the podcast channel, where you again, where you land on Pittsburgh, where you've gone on for Kickstarter games or crowdfunding games in general, or you can reach us on all forms of social media. You can email us at boardgamebarrage.gmail.com. I just want to, again, I sort of glossed over the Discord, or maybe we didn't gloss over it, but I just can't again state how great the Discord is. If you're a Board Game fan at all, again, even if you're not such a fan of our show, the Board Game Barrage Discord is unbelievable. Board games, non-Board game stuff, again, it's chock full of really, really great folks who talk about a lot of really cool things all day long. If you're looking to play games, which I think most people who are listening to this show are interested in doing, there is a digital games channel where people are starting new games on BGA and on Yukata all the time. I think it's invaluable resource for people who are just looking to play games, which is again, what we're all about. So just a huge plug for the Discord. Thank you as always to Heart Society for our intro and outro song, What's On Your Mind, Kid. Until next time, goodbye.

Speaker 2:
[58:44] Bye!

Speaker 3:
[58:45] Bye! Callum, legitimately, do we want to... Do we wanna... Switch our pledges?