At The Table with The Dice Tower - Legacy Schmegacy

13:53Eric Summerer:You're like, ooh, I can't wait till they open that box and see what happens. And that's fun. It's like when you watch a movie with someone else and you're staring at them. Ooh, are they going to be scared at this point? But it's not the same for you.

14:05Tom Vasel:Well, I think with any sort of media that there is that desire, like people who say, I wish I could go back and watch Star Wars for the first time, not knowing what was going to happen, being surprised by this thing, that I enjoyed the discovery so much. I want that feeling again. Or going back to a video game that I particularly loved. I want to experience it with the joy of that discovery. But you can't do that because you already know what you know. You can't wipe your brain with a neuralyzer and start over on that front. And I think some people want to do that with the Legacy game as well.

14:39Tom Vasel:They want to start, the Discovery was so much fun, they want to start from square one again and do it again.

14:46Eric Summerer:That's interesting. So the experience of the not knowing Discovery being so integral to the game experience that you then can't separate it from the experience playing it a second time is its secret sauce and its downfall.

15:06Tom Vasel:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And you can't, even with a second copy or a reset kit, you can't really, as Tom said, you can't get that exact feeling back. But people try, and that's part of it. We mentioned reset kits as a thing that publishers have offered. Sometimes it's a special set of cards, a new sticker sheet, a new map, that sort of thing. And there's also other workarounds that I've seen. We haven't mentioned the Star Realms legacy game yet, but they had not only stickers that went on the cards, but you could also buy a specific set. In that game, you're customizing cards, you're putting stickers on them to turn them into different factions and adding powers to them.

15:43Tom Vasel:And so they made specific cards for every iteration of particular cards that allowed you to, all right, I would have put a sticker on this card, so now I'll just flip through, and yep, here's the upgraded version of that card. That one's in my deck now. And so it was a lot of cards to purchase, but you could have done that to make your game fully resettable when you were done. Yeah, I get it.

16:07Eric Summerer:I almost think that for most legacy games, the amount of work and effort to do like the thing you just said, I'm like, I'll just buy another copy. Assuming they're not egregiously expensive. Like when I did Pandemic Legacy the second time through, I just bought another copy. It wasn't that expensive comparatively. than trying to figure out some way to reset everything. If I was going to play Gloomhaven a second time through, assuming I finished the first time, then I would be like, well, I guess I'll get the sticker upgrade kit. I don't even think I would get that. I think I would just write on a sheet of paper what numbers we were at.

16:45Eric Summerer:And in fact, I've done that with – so there's a little legacy game from Frickilius. I forget the name of it. It's a deck of cards where you go through and you – it's actually a very fun little game. Hang on. I'm going to pull up the name of it real quick. It is called Kingdom Legacy. Yeah, go figure. And in this game, you go through this little deck of cards and then you flip cards over and you flip them up and down. And some cards get stickers on them. And then you're done. And it's like a six-hour thing. And I thought, what a waste. I don't want to play this multiple times. So I'm going to write down the changes to the card so I can play it multiple times.

17:30Eric Summerer:And for 30 minutes, that worked fine. Then after a while, I was like, wait, what card was this again? I have this coin on it. And then people are like, well, just put them in sleeves and mark the sleeves. Sure. But that's also work. Sometimes it's more work than effort. And I mentioned this in the review. So the company sent me like five copies. They're like, now you don't have to do that. I'm like, that's great, but that's not really the solution. That's a solution for me. The company sent me five copies, but I don't want to have to buy five copies of the game. See, I have questions. I can't even say anything for multiple reasons.

18:15Eric Summerer:because I have questions about specific experiences from working on Sail Legacy, and all of it's spoilers, so I can't say a word. That's really helpful at all. Sail Legacy is not out yet. Yeah, that one's out yet. I purchased that one because I want to see it. But it's interesting. I mean, that one I know is Lean Starts Legacy, but I also know, for example, they did Mountain Goat's Legacy, which is barely a legacy game. It's more of a campaign style game. Correct.

18:47Tom Vasel:That is true. I believe it is fully resettable.

18:50Eric Summerer:Yeah, so it's kind of a tricky thing because it's nice when a game is fully resettable, but I'm also kind of happy when they're not. So in Seafall, and this is a slight spoiler, but don't worry, you shouldn't play Seafall. In Seafall, did you play Seafall, Eric, at all?

19:07Tom Vasel:My copy is still sitting unplayed in my basement.

19:10Eric Summerer:Okay. Well, I'm going to spoil the very, very beginning. brief it's not a big deal they give you these two characters and like pick one and you're like yeah i'll pick this character you play through the first scenario they're like okay that was the past rip up your character the other character is who you really are which almost made z quit the game and never play again he was so mad about that in fact his second character he named hugh cares because he was so annoyed about that that's amazing it is i thought it was really funny but to me that was a really interesting experience of like that's i was like wow that felt good that was the last time I felt good in that game.

19:44Eric Summerer:But I thought, I remember that. And there's also other things, and I won't spoil them because you should play games like Pandemic Legacy and things. There are moments in Pandemic Legacy where there is a legacy thing. And you're like, wow, that's permanent. Wow, that's amazing. Or terrible. But it's a moment, and because of the permanence of it, it makes a bigger deal on you.

20:14Tom Vasel:Yes. And this is sort of getting into how players have tried to work around that sort of thing. And you mentioned just like noting on a pad of paper what changes you're making to cards, which gets unwieldy very fast. Exiling cards rather than destroying them. A lot of legacy games will say, destroy this card.

20:34Eric Summerer:I've done that a lot.

20:34Tom Vasel:And I think a lot of them now don't just say to do that. They're like, just put it aside if you want.

20:40Eric Summerer:Or they'll have a little trash box. You don't have to destroy it.

20:43Tom Vasel:Yeah. So there is a way to get it back. It doesn't have quite that, you know, that aversion, I guess, of ripping up the cards. And some people have said you mentioned putting writing on the sleeves instead of stickers or using post-its and putting them inside the sleeve, something like that.

21:03Eric Summerer:But that just feels, doesn't that feel a little like that feels almost like you're playing a prototype at that point?

21:09Tom Vasel:It does. And I think you're losing, when you start kludging these extra layers on, or like, say, the rulebook. Okay, so a lot of these legacy games have a rulebook with a bunch of gaps in them. And as you unlock rules, new concepts, new mechanisms, you will get stickers that go into the rulebook that explain that new rule. So when you're done, you have a cohesive rulebook that flows the way it's supposed to, or like a player aid that now adds those extra mechanisms or actions or whatever. And so you're supposed to sticker them. And people who are, again, averse to using those stickers, what are you doing?

21:44Tom Vasel:Are you like holding on to those sticker cards? Yeah, I like all of it.

21:47Eric Summerer:I enjoy the – it's almost like a crafting experience at that point. I very much enjoy it. It is. It is like an arts and crafts thing. I'm terrible at putting those stickers in a rule book though. I'll put it in my kids. They're like, that's crooked. I'm like, I know.

21:59Tom Vasel:So, but the Regicide Legacy rulebook has like frames around a lot of them, which helps a lot for, you know, straightening everything up. But yes, I understand.

22:11Eric Summerer:In fact, I'll tell you, this is a very minor thing and it affects few people in the world. But reviewing Legacy games is kind of a pain because you play through it and you're like, all right, let's review it. Oh, I can't show the board. I can't show the rulebook. Yes. I can't show anything really. In fact, later on in this episode, I'm going to review a legacy game, The Queen's Dilemma. And we're having that same problem. Like, I need to review this. And then I forgot I had backed it. So a second copy showed up. And I was like, yay. I can show this unblemished one.

22:46Tom Vasel:It's like you almost have to open it up and take some footage of what it looks like right out of the box. I have definitely done that. And then you can just refer to it. But you just start playing right away. Right. Yeah, yeah. You don't think about it right away. I have done that. I think I reviewed a small legacy game from Buttonshy, and I had to put post-its over the spoiler stuff so that, like, this is secret information. Look away! Yeah, don't look at this.

23:14Eric Summerer:Avert your eyes.

23:17Tom Vasel:Yep, yep, yep, yep. So do you lose a feel of the game? If you're averting this, I understand. There are reasons for people wanting to do this. It saves money. You can reset it. You can maybe trade it away if you think you can reset it properly. There's environmental concerns to, like, I'd rather not destroy stuff. I don't want to do that. I want to keep this to be a pristine copy of the game but still gain the experience of playing it. Do you lose that if you have completely circumvented the permanence? Like the designers want this to be a permanent decision. It loses its weight if you're like, well, I can just reset it later.

23:56Eric Summerer:Well, it's similar to a video game. Some video games let you save anytime, anywhere, right? So you're like in the middle of something and you're in the middle of a fight and you can save even. And it makes those games easier. I think it's called scum saving is the video game save scumming and you can just do that then video game makers have wised up and they're like you can only save at these points and they even have like Elden Ring for example you can't even pause during a boss fight and I remember distinctly I'm in a fight and I get a phone call and I'm like I need to answer this phone call well too bad to them I need to finish this fight the baby is crying no I didn't say that Oh, goodness.

24:43Eric Summerer:I'm just not answering. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So I think it does take away from that because you are cheesing your way. You could just go back and say that didn't happen. I think it's – I mean, yes. I'm not judging other people for doing it. Designers are designing specifically for a certain kind of experience. and if you don't want to fully have that experience it is a little odd but if that's not the way you play games obviously they're the board game police aren't going to come bust down your door and be like no yeah you tear up that card like it's it you know you do what you got to do um it it is very very odd to me but also it's not you know some people you just can't you can't see yourself ripping up cards.

25:37Eric Summerer:And as somebody who spends a lot of time on those cards, sometimes it's hard to see something like that happening. I get it. But realistically, so I guess I want to hear for those people who painstakingly save their legacy games, do you play them again?

25:58Tom Vasel:Yeah, how often has this paid off?

26:00Eric Summerer:Right. Have you had the experience? And what was that like? I'm a little curious.

26:07Tom Vasel:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, some things you literally can't reset. Like Regicide Legacy, the unlock packs are in terrible envelopes.

26:17Eric Summerer:Mm-hmm.

26:17Tom Vasel:So, I mean, you can, I guess, repack them in the opened envelope, but you are literally tearing open, like, a pack of Pokemon cards, and you can't re-tape that, you can't duct tape that back together. Yeah. So you are changing it to get through it, even if you are trying to reset it afterward. Fair enough. So in order to get around this stuff, and I'm also thinking about folks who try and play exit games in a resettable manner, and that's another game that is designed to be destroyed when you play it. You are cutting things up. You're writing on stuff. And exit does not come with refill kits. You can't do that.

26:54Tom Vasel:You have to buy another copy of the game. But some folks will go on BoardGameGeek and say, what needs to be copied in order for me to reset this? What do I need to photocopy? What do I need to craft myself? What do I need to not write on? But doesn't that spoil it a little bit? If you are pre-planning to not destroy components, aren't you ruining some of the game that way? You can have someone else do it, Eric.

27:20Eric Summerer:I mean, in fact, that earlier game I mentioned that Legacy, Kingdom Legacy. They're like, if you accidentally drop all the cards, have someone who's not playing the game sort them out. Like, fine. but let me ask you this to both of you would either of you buy or even take for a very very cheap price a used legacy game that was reset would you be interested in that because i i would not i would not want to buy one i'd be too worried that it's just not pristine i don't know how to explain it i i wouldn't want to buy one but maybe you would would you i i don't so no exit games i have um but legacy games it's well because most of them are you're going to be playing it for a long time and so you don't know how far along you might be when suddenly you realize something is missing and that's part of the problem too if it's two months after i purchased it three months after i purchased it and my group has finally gotten to the whatever number in the campaign and i'm like okay, this card's missing.

28:29Eric Summerer:Can I even find that person's contact information at that point? So that's the piece of it for me that's iffy about that. But for an exit, I've absolutely played reset exit games that I've traded, done trades with before.

28:49Tom Vasel:There are certainly puzzle games that make it easier to refill. We just talked about the Emerald Flame, which does have refill components. You can reset that one even though some things were written on and could pass it on to someone. So I would be fine.

29:02Eric Summerer:Not only that, you can go online and they will say for this envelope, here's the printouts that you can print out to use instead of. It is possible to reset those.

29:14Tom Vasel:But for a legacy game, if somebody said, I have a copy of Pandemic Legacy and I've reset it. But I don't know if they've dotted every I and crossed every T and reset everything, or maybe they have a sticker or two that went into the rulebook. And, you know, there's just so many possible things that would mar the experience of Discovery with a legacy game. And I think for me, I would want to see it in its entirety. I want to see, I want the things to be hidden that are supposed to be hidden when I'm starting out.

29:49all right have we we've covered it i think um i i mean i i understand the desire to do it i i

29:56Tom Vasel:still just think circumventing that concept of a legacy game messes with the intent of the producers and designers of the legacy game and if you don't want to do that i think you're you're looking at maybe playing the Eternal game that somebody else did or play somebody's finished copy of the game. I'm not quite jiving with it. I guess I understand it though. And now, another tale of board gaming horror. Oh my, that's horrific. Gather round, children. Every summer since 2021, my group of friends has gathered for a weekend and played Twilight Imperium 4th Edition. We all drive in from various corners of Louisiana to play in my friend's high school classroom.

30:50Tom Vasel:We start Friday evening and play through Saturday night with breaks to sleep Friday night and to eat. We have a trophy that we pass around to the winner, and I add their name to it each year. We talk about the sudden betrayals, the epic battles, the grand scoop, and how Reggie always wins by getting five points in one turn. We talked about it so much that another group of five friends each wanted to join us. But since we already had six people in the annual group, we didn't want to add anyone. So I, as the game owner, decided to host a TI4 weekend for this second group of friends. We settled on a weekend in late January of 2025.

31:33Tom Vasel:Over the next few months, I forwarded how to play videos to the guys. They looked at all of the factions and picked who they wanted to play. I sent each a strategy guide for their chosen alien. We organized housing for the three out-of-towners. I got permission from my boss to use the conference room. Excitement was high as this was the first time for all but one of them to play TI4. The Friday of our planned weekend, I took TI4 to work with me and gazed at it in my office all day. As soon as the office closed at noon, I carried the box to the conference room and began setting up the game. I built out a pre-designed map for six.

32:12Tom Vasel:I set out the faction boards and all the components for each player. I organized the cards and tokens, including my custom 3D-printed strategy card holders and wormhole standees. Everything was coming together. But as I worked, I realized something was wrong. I was tired, started getting sniffly. I started sneezing. I got watery eyes. Every minute that passed, I was using more and more tissues. By three o 'clock, I felt miserable. I informed the guys by group chat, and two people, both with compromised immune systems, immediately backed out. Another said he wouldn't get into town until late anyway and also backed out.

32:57Tom Vasel:The other two followed suit shortly. I abandoned the fully set up game on the conference table and went home. The next morning I went to a quick care and tested positive for the flu for the first time in my life. I convalesced all weekend and went back to the office Sunday night, still sick, to pack up the game. Unplayed. we haven't been able to schedule another TI4 weekend since.

33:30Eric Summerer:That makes me so sad. So disappointing. It's like getting sick before you go to the amusement park. You're like, we're on a Disney World and one kid is sick. Or if you ever are about to take like a trip of a lifetime and a kid gets sick.

33:44Tom Vasel:Or yeah, maybe you're about to go to Barcelona with the entire music department and one kid gets the flu and can't go.

33:51Eric Summerer:I was being more vague, Eric. I was trying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

33:53Tom Vasel:No, I didn't get to go to Barcelona.

33:56Eric Summerer:I feel so bad. I still feel bad. I feel bad for you in this.

34:01Tom Vasel:Yeah. No, disappointment is a thing, especially when you're looking forward to it. It's just, I'm glad that they realized it early enough to call things off. That's good. Ultimately, they can reschedule.

34:14Eric Summerer:Oh, yeah, this could have been a worse tale of horror. This could have been terrible. And then the whole group had the flu. Yeah.

34:18Tom Vasel:We realized it after we were in the same room for 16 hours. But yeah, it's really hard. You're just so excited. And the setup and everything, like I was ready to go.

34:30Eric Summerer:And on it. I love because I've actually been sent this. Will Solbo does this every year for his birthday where he has several games that he plays with different groups of people. And you go on a spreadsheet and there's links to all the like how to play videos and faction information at a glance. Nice. We draft our factions online. And so by the time you sit down to play, there's nobody saying, how does this go? How do you play? You have been refreshed on how to play. And we sit down and we play a game. And so I like prepared. He was prepared. He was ready. and a lot of time and effort goes into that to make sure that the game experience, which is long in and of itself, isn't made longer by the getting everything up and running.

35:16Eric Summerer:So I love that. I'm so sad that it didn't so far bear fruit, but I'm hoping that everybody takes a minute to, you know, reconvene and then they have that experience.

35:33Tom Vasel:I thought that it was going to twist that the conference room was booked over the weekend or the janitorial staff just cleaned it all up overnight. That's not what happened.

35:43Eric Summerer:So mad. That is not better.

35:46Tom Vasel:They just shoveled it all into the box. They're like, no, this isn't supposed to be here.

35:51Eric Summerer:That is not better.

35:59they say that every rose has its thorn but not every rose has a hula hoop well let's talk about

36:06Eric Summerer:some games do it and i want to i'm gonna talk about a couple games that kind of fit our theme at the beginning of the episode so if we'll start with uh terraria the board game okay Have either of you played Terraria the video game? No. Terraria the video game is a... I'm very cautious here because I don't want the video game people to come and yell at me because they get mad every time you say it's 2D Minecraft. So it's Minecraft, but let's say it wasn't three-dimensional. Sure. But anyway, it's actually a very fun game. I've played it many, many, many hours. it is very similar to Minecraft but it is two dimensional but it's more than Minecraft's more about the building this one's more about the exploring you just mine down into the depths you find little monsters but you also find better ore and you're mining this ore and digging tunnels and big bosses show up occasionally you have to fight these big bosses and then you finally fight the final boss of the game called Wall of Flesh where at that point you're like is this game?

37:14Eric Summerer:Cute. It's a little cute game, but yeah, you fight the brain of the Cthulhu and the eye of Cthulhu at some point, too. Anyhow, Paper Fort Games has made the board game version of this. This was a very large Kickstarter. The Paper Forge Games has made Cosmocopus. I don't know if you've ever played that one, Eric.

37:32Tom Vasel:Yes, I think I have.

37:35Eric Summerer:And Fathom, which I brought to Dice Tower West. I'm not sure either of you played that one. Anyway, so this game, first of all, is the biggest lie on a box ever told because the box says on it 45 minutes per player. Now, we all know that all board game companies basically lie about time length on a box. And then people go, well, actually, once you know the game, it's that time. You know, when everyone knows the game and did what Julie did and have all the stuff sent to them, then you get the game done in time.

38:10Tom Vasel:Yep.

38:10Eric Summerer:45 minutes per player. So me and my son have been playing a two-player game of this now. I say we're on hour nine of the same game. It is a very long game. I went online. This is very much the consensus of this, although people are like, no, we got it done in four hours. That's still not 45 minutes a player.

38:39Eric Summerer:So it is a deck building game and it's cooperative and you're simultaneously playing. It's a humongous table hog. Really cool components. I mean, I think a good correlation, this would be the Slate of Spire board game in a sense as that game looks and compares to the video game. So doth this one. And I think that they might have erred too much on the let's make it like the video game as opposed to let's make a good board game. It's beautiful. There's great components. The setup is a lot and the teardown is immense to the point where the first time we played it, we played two and a half hours. I'm like, well, we're going to have to pack this up.

39:23Eric Summerer:There's no way to do it. There's no save state or anything. So I took pictures of everything, put it in bags and, you know, like, okay, this is Jimmy's stuff. This is my stuff. And I took pictures of the board. And then next time we set it up and then I was like, wait a minute. We own a board game table. What's wrong with me? Why am I doing this? So now it's left set up, which is shutting down all puzzle making and everything else in the household. Because it's still there. because I'm like, man, when it comes time to pack everything up, this is going to take me well over an hour because there's just so many different things.

39:59Eric Summerer:You are upgrading your sword, your shield, your pickaxe, your axe, your armor, and it's all kind of cool. Like, oh, I get to do this? There's a whole book that the game comes with that is a flip book that you can reverse it. On one side, it tells you all the monsters and how they work, and on the other side, it's like, would you like to build a new pickaxe? Do you have three gold, two wood, and four iron ore? Then yes, you can build a pickaxe. You're looking through it going, okay, here's all the resources I have. What can I build? So if you like that sort of thing, you'll like this game. The deck building is fine, but the game has two problems.

40:39Eric Summerer:One is obviously the length and the lack of a save state. I mean I don't mind that the game is super long if they give you a way to save it. Right. You know, Seventh Continent is also a very long game, but they give you a way to save it. The second is a boss will show up at some point. Probably King Slime is the first boss to show up. But these bosses, they come in their own little box. You pull them out. There's this plastic miniature, how the boss works. It's pretty cool. You fight the boss. Once you beat that first boss, you kind of just yawn and go, well, nothing else is going to affect us the rest of the game.

41:15Eric Summerer:You just kind of stroll along. And that kind of makes the game cozy, I guess, of sorts. But you're not worried because you're just going to whoop up on stuff, except for maybe the other bosses when they show up, which will be trickier and harder. It's just a lot. It's too much, frankly. I love the video game, but I don't need a one-to-one representation to the video game because me and my son can co-op play the video game. so why do we need to co-opt the video game as a board game take up all this space i i wanted to like this game a lot i like the video game immensely and i like deck building and i like this idea of exploration oh we went down to this town oh look at this monster that's down there but it's so fiddly okay i went here i have to find a monster okay this is a monster in level three of this terrain that's in this tray okay i'll take one of those out put it here now will look up on a chart what does that monster do blah blah blah blah blah so and i'm working as fast i can my son's loving it my son is doing zero of the bookkeeping so his opinion should reflect that yep because i'm like i think we've done enough let's pack it up he's like we must finish this okay okay we will he's he's so intent on finishing it he's like this game is amazing I'm like, I'm glad you think so.

42:37Eric Summerer:And I'm glad. I mean, I am. I'm glad that he's enjoying it. But I really can't recommend it to most people for that. If you have a 12-year-old son who, for them, I don't know if you remember the years between 10 and 16 where time was no issue. Ah, yes. The salad years. Yes. You just play the drop. But other than that, unfortunately, I can't recommend it. on the other hand i can recommend a legacy game which i mentioned earlier the queen's dilemma so this is a follow-up to the king's dilemma which i think is a little hilarious because i people keep saying will i get spoiled i guess i played both i've forgotten almost everything that happened in king's dilemma um and when you get it they're like here's a refresher in case you forgot all the events that happened king's dilemma and i read through it and i was like i I don't remember any of that.

43:30Eric Summerer:You could play one without having played the other, which is good because Queen's Dilemma is a much better game than the King's Dilemma. Both of them have the same aspect. You are part of a council. The first one, you're a council for the king. The second one, you're a council for the queen, who is a very bloodthirsty, strong queen. I would say a good analogy might be Elizabeth I. But she's just ready to go out and fight. And sometimes we're like, calm down. But in this game, you are presented with these dilemmas. These different things will happen. And then everyone will vote on this dilemma.

44:06Eric Summerer:And all of you have your own faction with your own little twists and things that you want. Some of you might be like, tradition. And others are like, ah, progress. And so you will argue so that the event will – the event – you don't know exactly what it will do. But it will say if this event is successful, then progress will go forward or tradition will go backward. Like maybe there's a priest out there who is doing something evil and you're like, well, we should censor him and execute him. But you're like the other side is, no, we can't do that. The priests look as the people. That will cause riots in the streets.

44:42Eric Summerer:And so you have this decision. And what I just mentioned is pretty pale. if you are someone who gets triggered by a decent amount of like violence drugs and stuff like that i would not recommend this game it is it is very much these are there's some dark stuff that happens in here especially with in this one there's particularly uh the drug trade is thriving in our kingdom and there's also some really weird stuff that has happened and we're like appreciate the content warning that's good to know yeah i mean it really is and you have to i think Like take it very congenially or I think the game might depress you too much because you're like, what did we just do to that city?

45:26Eric Summerer:But it's so fascinating to watch this world change. And they have a map that – this big paper map that you put stickers on and you own or you're in charge of a couple areas in the map. Like those are your fiefdoms. And so one of my fiefdoms is just the red light district right now and I am not thrilled about that. And I'm also fiercely protective of it. Don't you try to change the laws there?

45:53Eric Summerer:And it's so interesting. Like we just play game after game after game after game of it in a row and it's fascinating. You're like, well, let's see what happens next time. The game is still not as strong as the theming of it. But to watch your decisions that you make come back and haunt you. Like I'm trying to make up stuff. But let's say an alien lands on the planet. That doesn't happen at all. And this alien is like, I bring peace to mankind. And you're like, that alien looks delicious. We could harvest him for food. And so you have to make this decision. Our people are starving. Do we harvest them for fruit or do we take this?

46:29Eric Summerer:And whatever decision you make will then sometimes repercuss and sometimes there's like a whole ladder of decisions, which does mean there's a good chunk content of the game you may not see. Yeah. So that has definitely happened in Queen's Lama. When I was done with Queen's Lama, I opened up all the envelopes. So I didn't open up because I was curious what would have happened if we had done this. But it's fascinating. It is at least 15 to 17 games. It's going to be variable depending on how you get to these ending points. There's these different quest lines that you finish. I don't think I particularly am proud of my nation at the moment or myself or the queen or everyone else at the table but I'm sticking to my guns amazing I'm a very loyalist tradition guy I'm like we gotta follow tradition but sometimes sometimes and so I'll be against progress and then you're like we could use that tech we don't need that tech we've been fine for years that's nice so it's a fascinating game and I think you'll have fun with it I would not play it with kids and it's not because of nudity or sex as much as just there are real life adult situations that come up you know you're going to talk about that stuff like I said there's a lot of drugs is probably the number one thing and how to deal with a species that may or may not be what's the word for that when walking, talking, what do you call it?

48:06Eric Summerer:Sapient? Yeah, sentient, sorry. They may or may not be sentient, so how do you deal with them? Yeah, sort of stuff like that. So it's pretty fascinating, and also it deals with war, so if you're not a big fan of war crimes, you probably shouldn't play this, because you may or may not commit something. I don't know if you're selling it. I'm very intrigued, but also... Well, that's the thing, though. I don't want to pretend otherwise, right? and it's a fantasy world far ago, long ago, whatever. So you could take these things and there's not a ton of pictures or anything and it's also not a ton of gruesome details necessarily, but it's there.

48:47Eric Summerer:So if you can kind of look at it with a little bit of dark humor, I think you will enjoy it. I do, but there's a lot of people I wouldn't recommend this to or play it with. But I do think it's one of the most fascinating storylines of a legacy game and I'm very curious to see where it ends up. I may die at the point I've committed so many crimes. Although not as many as the other people at the table, I think. So that's the Queen's Dilemma.

49:10Tom Vasel:Going back to our earlier discussion, not resettable. You're making permanent changes to everything.

49:15Eric Summerer:No, and in fact, they made a very weird decision in this one that it comes with upgraded bits. It was a Kickstarter, right? So all the cardboard tokens can be upgraded into wooden tokens. And I'm like, really? it's cool but what am i gonna do when it's done i don't know and you know what we haven't quite finished it yet so there may be some sort of replayable game i just can't see it i just don't even think it'd be interesting i i i don't think so the questions later oh yeah sure sure i can answer those later perfect that's the queen's dilemma all right julie yes um right in the mood I also have been playing games, oddly enough.

50:02Eric Summerer:So the first game I wanted to talk about was Sanctuary. It is a Ark Nova game that was touted as being streamlined and which I can verify is in fact the case. So it's another you're running a zoo, but a little bit more about conservation and overseeing lots of different conservation efforts. thematically. But really what you're doing is you're placing the different tiles. So action selection, you are drafting tiles from a shared display. You're restricted by the number of slots. You only, you could have a max of six in your project tableau and they have different costs, abilities, regions. So you might be built, you might be in North America, you might be in Africa, based on what the animal or the building or the different things are.

51:06Eric Summerer:So you must take one of those on your turn. And at the beginning, you're going to be like, ah, I need more. And then several turns in, you're going to be like, no, no more. I'm good. And that happens. The next thing you're going to do is you're going to perform one action. So you have four cards in front of you, they are of a certain value based on their placement in your own kind of tableau. So from left to right, you have the lowest value to the highest value. They will let you either play a project tile from your hand or play an animal tile. And that animal tiles specifically they'll break down to the three different types of habitats forest rock and water um so you're going to do those actions first and when you play those tiles you know you're going to have to look at the cost and where that card is based on whether you can or cannot play it uh they're going to have special abilities and then they're going to have little they're going to have other things which are relative placement rules so if you have a male and a female parrot next to each other, you're going to get a conservation bonus.

52:15Eric Summerer:You're helping conserve that way. Or you might have a tiger and on two sides of the hexagonal there, it needs lots of space to roam. So you will also have to take two of those other tokens that you have and place them face down so that it has more habitat space. Those are worth one for each at the end of the game, but otherwise they don't really do a lot for you. So you have to make sure that the tiger is placed that way and you must have enough tokens to be able to place all those down. Things like that. The buildings that you place are placed based on situationally where you can on the map on the rule set that they have.

52:54Eric Summerer:Like they must be next to a bird or near water, that type of thing. And you can only build off of starting at the center off of tiles that have already been placed. um then there's stuff like upgrading your action cards so that they're of more value and unlock higher points um you can't you're looking to see if you have fulfilled any of the conservation requirements like having three animals placed in a a specific region and if that's the case you have taken you take a conservation token so that's that's what you're doing it's and it's cyclical you just keep taking turns it's very simple it still has the opportunity for a little bit of analysis paralysis because but you still have a finite amount of things that you can playing at any given time and the game ends as soon as somebody collects all of the conservation requirements which is typically four except in small lower playing games so So I very much enjoyed it a lot.

54:02Eric Summerer:I liked the level of puzzleness, the level of thinking at your turn in strategy, the missed opportunities that can happen versus, you know, what you want to do. John from my playing group also really liked it. He also kept stealing the animals that I wanted to take into my hand. And we had a thing happening back between us. I do know that it's not for everybody because Danielle did not enjoy it as much as we did. So, but for me, it was the right amount of strategy and planning and for the amount of time it took to play it, it didn't overstay its welcome. So for me, it was a rose.

54:47Tom Vasel:Nice, nice. I like this one a lot. I think I prefer this to Ark Nova while I enjoy both games. I think this shaves off just enough of the mechanisms from Ark Nova to make it a little bit easier to do, but still offers enough of a challenge that it's still interesting. So I think this hits my sweet spot more than Ark Nova does.

55:06Eric Summerer:Correct. For me, and it's also the time, the amount of time to play. I can get it to the table, at least playing it with John. My, I'm going to say hula hoop. It was, so this was a puzzle game the case of the Curiously Quiet Theater that I have played another one of theirs before from Bluefish Games where you're in a narrative and you're trying to figure out the puzzle. It's played partially online. You type in the answer online to let you get onto the next piece of the case and then you unlock the next envelope. Each envelope has three to five different puzzles that all culminate into one answer that you would then type in to unlock the next one.

56:01Eric Summerer:The first one I played, I loved. It was a haunted house. I'm not, that's not the specific title, but I know the thematically it was about a haunted house and you were trying to do things. The puzzles themselves, they are not super difficult. I find it easier than an exit game. But for me who loves puzzle games and is notoriously not that good at them. I actually figure out these and need a very few clues because they do offer clues. And they do it very gradually so you don't get spoilers immediately if you're asking for a clue. But I don't, mostly I look at them at the end to verify that my answer is correct type of thing.

56:45Eric Summerer:So that piece of it I like and that was still the case of this one. However, it just didn't hit with me And it's, I, the story, I just, it didn't seem cohesive. The curiously quiet theater, I just didn't feel invested in why the theater was quiet and what was happening in it. So it didn't pull me in and therefore the puzzles were interesting, but there was no, for me, super motivation to get to the next clue to get to the next clue, which I felt in the first one. So it was a hula hoop in that I had much higher expectations and it didn't pay off for me. And I feel bad about that. But that is the truth that this that's where that was for me.

57:34Eric Summerer:The case of the Curiously Quiet Theater.

57:36Tom Vasel:I think I enjoyed the puzzles on this one a little bit more than you did. But I agree. The story, it's a weird concept to begin with. It's like this audio recording is a guy who is supposed to be passing on a book to you. but he turned it into the library so he's recording his reenactment of the story and then using the puzzles to help fill in the gaps and it just narratively it's a little too inception-y as to what you're even paying attention to but the puzzles I think were solid

58:05Eric Summerer:The puzzles were good I liked the puzzles I just didn't I wasn't motivated to why they were happening and the first one I liked there was a haunted house and it was I don't know. I like the storyline much better.

58:20Tom Vasel:Alright. You. Me. What did I do? I played a little tiny game called Wool Street. This is from a new line that's in a, it's like a weird rectangular it's not a tuck box. It's a it's not really a clamshell card game box either. It's like, think of a rectangle that opens vertically so it holds together a little bit better, but it like telescopes. There we go. It's a telescoping box that opens there. And the cards are sort of mini size. This is designed to be something you throw in a bag. A tiny little portable game. Wool Street is a stock market game. It is themed like you have all these wool products, mittens, sweaters, scarves, what else am I missing?

59:06Tom Vasel:Hats. There's a fifth one as well. And they come in the five colors, but there's only like the scarf is only one color. There are five different products that will be maneuvered in this game. Everybody starts with two of these products, two scarves, two hats, etc. And then there is a deck of cards that represent the market forces that go into this game of these five things. There are seven of each of these five items. This is all shuffled up. Although you are before they're all shuffled up, you are given, after they're shuffled up, I guess, you're given one or, in a two-player game, two cards.

59:42Tom Vasel:You get to look at them, and those are going to get shuffled and put on the bottom of the deck. So you know one of the last few, one or two of the last few things in the deck. That's important, because then you start revealing cards. Each turn, you reveal a card and put it out on the table, and then you must either sell or buy one of the items that are in front of you. If there are no items for sale in the center, you have to sell one of the things. So I have to get rid of, say, scarves because I know that's going to be at the bottom of the deck. So I might get rid of my scarf. Or on a future turn, I see that there are a bunch of scarves out there.

1:00:19Tom Vasel:Maybe I want to grab one or I grab a mitten or something. And now I'm adjusting the things that are in front of me. And we keep adding more market cards to the table. As soon as one of the items gets all seven of its cards out, it is locked in. And you now know what that is worth. Those cards or those items are going to be worth plus two, plus one, zero, minus one, or minus two. And every time they fill up on the table, they are going to be assigned a new value. But you can continue to trade even though something is locked in in its value. This is important because you know some of those last things that are going to come out, they're going to be the things that are worth the least or worth negative points.

1:00:57Tom Vasel:So you're trying to get rid of the things that are worth negative points in your tableau and get more of the things that are worth positive points. This continues until all of the cards are out on the table, and then you total up what everybody has. So you might have realized that all that matters is the last few cards in this game. That's the most important thing, and you're gambling whether your item that you saw is going to be the last or the second or the third to last card, and therefore that could be a big difference in the values of those things. And there's a little bit of bluffing in when you get rid of things and not.

1:01:34Tom Vasel:When I first looked at this, I said, this looks like it could be mildly interesting or perhaps subtly interesting. You know, that small little thing of the knowledge of knowing what the last card is or one of the last cards is could be interesting. It's not. I don't think it's interesting. I think it's just a random draw at the end. And if you keep your portfolio small enough, you can shed the things that are worth negative points by the end of the game. And I end up tying the other player when I played. I don't think this works as a two-player game, even knowing two of the cards at the end. I think you need at least more players, but I'm not sure it's worth the time.

1:02:16Tom Vasel:This is almost too simple. And it just – I'm giving a thumbs up for the presentation. I think the sheep are cute. And I like that telescoping box, but I'm not a fan of the gameplay. That's Wool Street. That is a thorn for me. Next up, I had an opportunity to play an upcoming version of Colosseum. Colosseum is not a new game. That's been out for a while. There was a Days of Wonder edition. I think there was one in the middle. I think this is the third version of Colosseum. This is upcoming. They're even calling it something different. It's Colosseum, the grand spectacle. Colosseum is an auction and set collection and negotiation game.

1:02:54Tom Vasel:You're putting on shows in an arena and you've got a little card that says, I'm putting, I want this show. It needs two horses and one jester or something. And you're trying to collect the tiles that are going to allow you to put on that show. This happens through a series of auctions. You have to pay money to get collections of tiles, which now sit in front of you. And they may or may not relate to the show that you're trying to put on. And then you begin a negotiation phase where you are able to trade the tiles that you've got in front of you. You can also buy upgrades that are bonuses for points and other, you know, manipulation things.

1:03:31Tom Vasel:There's also a dude that goes around the – like an emperor that goes around the outside and various other officials that can adjust the value of your things if you get those people close to your side of the arena. And that can adjust the final score when you put on a show and say, I'm doing this show and I've got all the tiles I need. I'm missing this one tile, so I get a little bit of a negative point there. But I have this emperor here. He's looking and I've got this sub emperor over here and he's looking and he's enjoying the show. And I get X number of points. And then you're trying to see who gets the most points for the round.

1:04:08Tom Vasel:You then continue for multiple rounds to ultimately see who is the best at putting on shows. Oh, you're also buying the ability to put on the shows. One of the things you can buy in a round is a new card that says, I'm doing this show now. And this one has four horses and blank. And they get better and better and cost more and more to put on in the first place. So you're investing to be able to do something bigger. If you win a round, you get the highest score. You're going to get a bonus for the next round, which sort of snowballs and allows you to earn more and more each time. And if you don't win those rounds and you're just staring at the guy across the table that is winning those rounds, then you're having more trouble trying to keep up with that.

1:04:52Tom Vasel:I think Coliseum is a lovely game that if you are fans of auction and negotiation, you are going to enjoy this game. I do not enjoy negotiation games very much. I just I feel like they're a little too frustrating for me. And this does all of those things. I would often be stuck in a negotiation phase and I want all of these tiles that are in front of me. So I have nothing to trade. Therefore, I cannot improve my position in any way. And I just don't know what to do about that situation. Like people are like, if you give me this tile, I'll give you these. I'm like, I need this tile. I don't have anything for you.

1:05:30Tom Vasel:Oh, if you give me money, I'll give you this. I need this money. I need it for the next auction round. And it just, I felt like I was spinning my wheels the whole time. I think I felt the same way the first time I played an earlier edition of Colosseum. This new edition doesn't change a whole lot for me. I think the new pieces are cool. There's some nice resin pieces. I think they knocked a round off of it. I think it was a six-round game. It's now a five-round game. But I still don't really like negotiation games. So ultimately, this is a double thorn for me this episode. I was not a fan of Colosseum, but I don't think it's the game's fault.

1:06:07Tom Vasel:I think I just don't like negotiation games. That's Coliseum, the Grand Spectacle.

1:06:12Eric Summerer:Wow. We're in a thicket. It's an amazing, I think it's an amazing game. I also don't think it's that strong of a negotiation game, but.

1:06:21Tom Vasel:I'm glad you enjoyed it. This is a lovely new edition. I think it looks pretty.

1:06:25Eric Summerer:Well, that's it, folks. We talk about games a lot, and we need to get going here. I know. So we can play some of these games with you at one of our cons. Show up to that. Either way, con season's about to start. Woo! I gotta get ready. Until next time, I'm Tom Vessel.

1:06:39Tom Vasel:I'm Julie Ahern. And I'm Eric Sommerer.

1:06:42Eric Summerer:And we'll see you at the table.

1:06:44Tom Vasel:Thanks for listening. At the Table is produced by Tom, Julie, and Eric with assistance from the team at Dice Tower Studios. You can find us online on Facebook or on BoardGameGeek in the Dice Tower Guild. Promotional consideration has been provided by publishers in the form of review copies of games. Dave Culling arranged our theme based on themes by Timothy Pinkham and Chasing Down Null Values brought to you by Nuns on the Run. Until next time, from all of us at the table, Have fun gaming.

1:07:14Eric Summerer:Add extra sticker sheets for Gloomhaven to bring to Gen Con for Tom. For my third playthrough.

1:07:24Tom Vasel:We have a trophy that we pass around to the winner, and I add their name to it each year. We talk about the sudden betrayals, the epic... Swallowed a bug. we talk about the sudden betrayals, the epic battles, the grand scoop.