At The Table with The Dice Tower - Where You Least Expect

13:36Eric Summerer:Shouldn't be here though. I don't want someone who's bored of Scrabble picking that up and going, what have we done? Well, see, but if they're bored of Scrabble and they pick it up, they're going to look at it and then probably close the box again and go, nope. That's true. I'm not worried about that. I have faith. Well, it's not faith. I just don't think if you're donating a game to a library, you definitely should consider the weight of it. Agreed.

14:02Tom Vasel:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But also, so not necessarily a library. I'm going to say if you're going to leave it at an Airbnb, someplace where people are going to be absolutely not assisted in gameplay. a library conversely though talk to the librarians are they gamers because if they are then sure i'll leave something far more robust because librarians are quite good at gauging somebody's interest level in in books as well as games and then doing an excellent job of explaining it so no i i disagree with that at a library i apologize i meant everything but the

14:37Eric Summerer:library i said library i meant the little library and these things libraries are the exception to the rule here because there's someone there it's the same as if a kid goes to the library and says what should i read they're not going to hand them war and peace don't ever hand anyone war and peace they're going to hand them a book that's appropriate if i go and say i'm looking for this but if i go in and say i'm looking for something complex the librarian might will say well this book's good for you so they should do the same with board games and i've found that even though they are paid very little and or are volunteers librarians some of the best people on the planet.

15:12Eric Summerer:Agreed.

15:13Tom Vasel:Indeed. I sort of set libraries aside for the end of the discussion because they are a different animal, really. They're a cultivated shelf or multiple shelves. In fact, if you haven't been to your local library in a while, you might be surprised to find what they have on the shelf. My local Simsbury library has a pretty significant game collection with a wide variety of titles. Our friend Jen Bartlett, the board gaming librarian, is semi-local, And I think she's just celebrated 10 years cultivating board gaming at the Manchester Library here in Connecticut. And she's got some amazing stuff and puts out themed selections of games.

15:49Tom Vasel:So I'd check out your local library. You might have a very dedicated librarian who is working at cultivating something more significant than what we're talking about.

15:58Eric Summerer:Oh, the libraries have changed in general. I mean, every time I go to a library now, I'm like amazed. No one shushes you when you walk in. That's true. talking and stuff. There's computers. I mean, obviously there should be computers, but there's also, there's like, they kind of go out, they're going outside, they have to evolve, right? Or else they're going to go away. And so things change. If there's like, like Halloween, we go to the library because they set up a bunch of events there and things like that. And there's clubs that meet at libraries now. Yes. So, you know, Indianapolis has - Go to your local library.

16:33Right. Indianapolis has many branches of the public library. The local one to me is on the smaller side, and they have a weekly board game club. But also when I go in, they'll have, you know, right now it's flu shots. Do you need a flu shot and you can't afford it? Well, the library's got you. So there's a lot, like, to that, that's, yes. Libraries are amazing community centers.

17:03Eric Summerer:They are tough for board game clubs for me on a personal level just because the timing of libraries doesn't fit my schedule. I want to game at night. Yeah. And most libraries aren't open at night. Or I'll see like they'll be like, we're gaming this Saturday from 3 to 5. I'm like, okay. That's odd game. That's fine for a lot of people. I'm not trying to put it down. But for me, I'd be like, you know, I don't know if it's worth me going to that, but I'm glad they do it. Absolutely. Well, I consider going to volunteer to help out. But then I also realized that my schedule is not consistent enough that I can do that.

17:43So I will just donate.

17:48Tom Vasel:My local coffee shop has started doing a board game night and it happens to be the exact same night that my personal game group meets. And they just keep conflicting every single time. I feel terrible every time I see the owner of the coffee shop. And like, yeah, I would be here, but you're conflicting on my game night.

18:04Eric Summerer:Yeah. I also want to put in here, what condition are they in? And this is something that I'm often very saddened about because I'll go to the sinks and it looks like tanks ran over a couple of them.

18:14Tom Vasel:I've seen a really well-loved Uno deck this weekend.

18:17Eric Summerer:Yeah. And sometimes it's just like if you own an Airbnb and you're going to put board games in it, I get it. They're going to get used. but try to keep them from just being trash. This is an Airbnb problem in general. When we went to PAX and Plugged a few years ago, we got a house of fun. They had a pinball machine and video games and big board games and stuff. And we went there, and to say it was gently used is an understatement. It wasn't terrible, right? I mean, it was fine, but it was certainly different than the pictures.

18:52Tom Vasel:Yeah. The pool table made a pretty good gaming table, though.

18:55Eric Summerer:Oh, you were at that. I was.

18:57Tom Vasel:As long as you avoided putting meeples in the pockets, then it was a problem.

19:01Eric Summerer:That's right. We were playing games at the pool table. And again, it wasn't a terrible place, but run down. So I don't remember if they had board games there or not. They probably had a couple. But I don't know what you do in that regard. Well used means well loved. So that's a positive thing.

19:17Tom Vasel:But functional, you still need them to work. Right. Right. Airbnbs are hard in the sense, or any sort of, I mean, any kind of public place, that means you're talking about the public. So whoever comes in, not everybody is going to be as respectful as you are. So as an Airbnb person, you're the owner, or you're hiring people to clean, and they are probably not, they're looking at cleaning and not looking at mending the condition of the games, which means, you know, if you're going to put them out there, correct. Every so often you have to go in and cull and put in new ones or try to repair, which again, thrift stores, friends.

19:59But that's probably why you see so many copies of Scrabble because thrift stores have so many copies of Scrabble.

20:07Tom Vasel:You need multiple copies to get the full collection of letter tiles at some point. A hundred percent.

20:11Eric Summerer:So that's, so folks, you answer the question, tell us in Facebook group or in our forum, on Board Game Geek, tell us where the most interesting place you found a little collection of board games is and what cool games you've discovered there. Because I like to hear about this sort of thing.

20:27Tom Vasel:I'm putting this in my will. When I go, my kids have to travel the country and just spread my collection in every place they visit.

20:36Eric Summerer:Eric, just introduce a new topic, folks, that we'll talk about in a future episode.

20:43Tom Vasel:Question. Question. Questions. Questions.

20:49Eric Summerer:All right, we have a question from Sam who says that he enjoys our podcast. Thank you, Sam. And he says, I semi-regularly attend local meetups at two libraries. Hey, we were just talking about that. The libraries provide a separate space for people to game. They usually run from 10 to 4 on a Saturday, and there's a core group of people that will attend. There's a wide range of games played, but the majority of games are Euros, which will last one to four hours depending on the game and players' analysis paralysis. There will be party games and simple card games played, usually early as people arrive before people break off into groups of three to five to play heavier games.

21:25Eric Summerer:Sam says, I hadn't been there for six months, but he managed to get to a session a couple weeks ago, and he's welcomed back by a guy he enjoys playing games with, and that gentleman said let's play Merv which he had just brought from another regular attendee he had bought it from that attendee a third player joined us we started setting up and he began to teach a chap and Sam is going to call this person Bob was sitting close by and express interest in joining but my friend said the game didn't play well at four and was very complex maybe his friend is Tom Vassell anyway other people were setting up games and I assumed Bob would jump in on one of them but that didn't happen other people arrived in a game a food chain magnet was set up for three bob wasn't one of them bob cycled back to us we were still going through the teach bob was asking questions about the game where he could buy it etc eventually we started the game it was fast-paced no one had analysis paralysis one of the other players passed the copy of the rulebook to bob to have a look at bob wandered off at some point i asked the other two what was up as they clearly were dead set against playing the game with bob the game could easily have accommodated a fourth player in summary they said bob was a nightmare to play with.

22:32Eric Summerer:He couldn't understand anything but the simplest of card games. Anything more complex and you essentially have to tell him what to do on each of his turns. It transpired that he had been along several times before and several of the regulars had said they would never play a game with him again. Sam said, I felt bad about the situation. The meetups are in a public place and everyone is welcome. Generally, the regulars try and make newcomers feel comfortable and introduce them to easier games if they have no or little gaming experience. Having said that, for many this is their one chance a week or maybe even month to get in a heavy thinky game.

23:05Eric Summerer:If they have played a game with Bob before and found it to be an awful experience, then you can't expect them to voluntarily go through that same scenario again. Thanks, Sam, for then asking us what would we advise in that situation. Should the regulars politely tell Bob that perhaps board gaming isn't for him? Many of us like quick card games, but there's a limit to how many we want to play in a session. And he says he wants to emphasize that there was nothing about Bob's manner, the way he conducted himself to be offensive or anything else. He seemed perfectly pleasant. I have met said Bob on multiple occasions.

23:41We have all met Bob at some point.

23:43Tom Vasel:It's an archetypical Bob. Yes. but here's the it's not it's not your job to accommodate or dissuade Bob from living his life so you know I understand that this person feels bad because they're new on the scene to the situation but Bob is an adult who has made his is making his own decisions on what he may or may not be interested in. Likewise, your friends are adults who have had their chance to play with Bob and make their own decisions. They were not offensive either. They maybe could set a boundary a little bit better and say, Bob, we've played games with you and it just goes better when it's an easier game and we're playing this game today.

24:37I think that that, but that's on them to do personally. and if they don't want to and are uncomfortable with it again that's that's their individual decision i think if you want to go above and beyond and set up a rotation of okay well this week i'm gonna play this light game with bob first and then i'm gonna pass him off that would be an above and beyond and sure you can do that but you're not the community manager as far as i I can tell. So it's OK to every once in a while take it upon yourself. It's also OK to communicate boundaries.

25:13Tom Vasel:Yeah, I think that it's speaking of the community manager, that's probably more in their ballpark that they should be looking around and seeing if there's a good variety of game weights being represented. And if Bob is still floating and other people who are looking for something lighter are still floating, maybe it's up to them to say, let's get something started. That's a lighter game.

25:33Eric Summerer:Sure, but I don't know that I want to put that on the person who ran this, that they have to always then do that. Because this person might be someone who's just like, let's get together and play games. And that's the extent of their involvement. The way I deal with the Bobs in my life is when I go to a meetup and there's a Bob or so there, I will say, all right, this is my week. And this is just me. I'm not telling anyone else to do it. I'll play a game with Bob. and I will deliberately not play a very complicated game because I know where that's going to head. So I'll play some light mid-weight game or lighter than that.

26:08Eric Summerer:And then I'm like, all right. And then when I'm done, I say, I'm going to get up and go around and talk to their players. And I do that until I see Bob distracted, then I'll start my heavier game. And if Bob comes, I will say often the same thing. It's three players. It's too long with four. But my main way of dealing with Bob is it's a public event. you go to that, Bob's are going to be there. Sorry, by the way, to all Bob's listening to this podcast, but you know what I mean. I know. And then I have private events, and I heavily curate them. You know, we have meetups here at Dice Tower where people come and play games.

26:45Eric Summerer:And if you're in a Fort Myers area, ask me, well, how have you come by? But when people are like, hey, can my friend come by? My first question, I ask them. I'm like, well, maybe I can play with him in a different setting and see how they are before I invite them to this because here we're all going to jump into pretty heavy games sometimes and I don't want it to ruin especially for people who play once a week or once a month and they come in and play a two-hour game that is now five and then they don't come back but Bob still does and I'm like come on um and I guess if you know

27:19Tom Vasel:that you might be a potential Bob you should come armed with a couple of light games that you know are good. And if you aren't able to sit in on some of the heavier stuff, start up the lighter game and look for players on that front. And I understand. Nobody wants to confront Bob about his lack of skill or understanding or adept nature of playing board games despite his enthusiasm. And I get that. You don't want to make him feel bad, but if everybody's avoiding him because the the subtext of all of this was Bob was wandering around and nobody was everybody was doing this to Bob that's why nobody was why he kept games were getting started and he wasn't in on it so if that's the case oh and and Bob is not leaving then so I think it's better to have a conversation where you're like hey so you struggle playing games but you really enjoy them what about them do you enjoy it?

28:22Like, and again, that's, it's not anybody's particular job and that's the hard part. But if you want to be a good community person, maybe having a frank conversation there, we got a different name in and saying what, you know, what about games do you like? And maybe saying, okay, so this game is going to be your game and you're going to play this game until you are very comfortable with it. And, and maybe, ticket to ride every week until Bob feels very comfortable with ticket to ride and then have him be the welcome wagon for new players and teach them the ticket to ride. There's things you could do.

29:05But again, if it's not your community management position, that's going above and beyond. Is it a nice thing to do? Sure. Is it required? Absolutely not.

29:16Eric Summerer:You definitely should not tell them gaming is not for them. Maybe not heavy gaming, but don't tell them board gaming is not for them. Anyone can play board games. You just got to find the ones that are for them. That's all.

29:28Tom Vasel:Yeah, yeah. Correct. All right. Moving on to a question from Timothy. Timothy says, I'm a senior in high school this year. I'm planning on going. Sorry. What?

29:36Eric Summerer:What was that? I was saying congrats. Congrats.

29:39Tom Vasel:Yes. I'm planning on going to college in the fall of 26. I have a game collection that I'm not sure what to do with. It's somewhere around 30 games. I definitely don't want to get rid of them, but I am also not sure about hauling them to a dorm room. Should I leave them home until I get a house or apartment? And when I do move them, what do you suggest I store them in? Suitcase, cardboard boxes, etc.

30:03Eric Summerer:Well, the first thing I'll say, Timothy, is from personal experience, have a conversation with your parents before leaving anything at home. Because I don't know about you, but some mothers, rest in peace, mom, tend to like say

30:19Tom Vasel:take the opportunity

30:19Eric Summerer:they don't need this anymore and get rid of stuff so if you're leaving at home which if my kids ask to leave their little board game collection home I would say yes or whatever the collection is I'd say yes but once you're out of college get it or I'm getting rid of it that would be what I would tell them

30:35Tom Vasel:there's got to be a timeline associated here I left for college and I came back at Thanksgiving and my room had turned into a Laura Ashley Wonderland. What? Yeah, it went from like, I was not that my room was hideous, but it was definitely monochromatic and just real basic. And I had posters everywhere. Posters were gone. Book collection was gone. Everything was and it looked like just flowers just vomited everywhere in the room. And my mother was like, well, you left.

31:14Eric Summerer:And I thought you were done. And I was like, but I was coming back. So yes, absolutely. Have the conversation with your parents. I love that you're thinking about it. That's showing a level of forethought and responsibility. So hopefully your parents respect that. And yes, I would store them in boxes, not suitcases, cardboard boxes.

31:38Tom Vasel:Yeah. if they aren't interested in storing them and have maybe have that conversation too, for how long so that you don't just leave them and then, and is it for the, I think it's going to be for four years or it might be five because, you know, after I leave, I'm not sure when I'm ready. Have that conversation too. What is their maximum before they get tired of it so that not one day you're blindsided by them being like, all right, enough, come take it. Where for you, You thought it was just, it was already set. So, you know, and also know your parents. My mother, I love her. She can't handle clutter in any way, shape or form.

32:23So she couldn't handle clutter in any way, shape or form. So things that I left at home were, and I, you know, didn't have the conversation, but I also know who she is as a person and I should have known better. So having the foresight and also knowing who your parents are and whether or not they're going to be OK with you leaving boxes somewhere in their attic in the basement. Also, where are they going to store it? Basements flood and get damp.

32:49Tom Vasel:Yeah. Same with attics.

32:51Eric Summerer:So store in boxes, by the way, or bins.

32:56Tom Vasel:Or bins. Plastic bins are more waterproof or water resistant for those situations.

33:01Eric Summerer:Yeah. Here's the thing.

33:01Tom Vasel:I would pick five to bring with you.

33:03Eric Summerer:I just say I would take a few with you because you might say, I don't know if I'll have time to play them. And you might not. But having a few isn't going to clutter your room up too much. And it just might work. But try to pick. Definitely take a couple party games. Even if you're not a huge party gamer, that's the kind of game college kids are going to want to play often. And you will be a hero for bringing a game that they've not played before. You're like, I brought just one. And they're like, what's that? And then you're going to play it 100 billion times. A lot. Yeah. And you'll be known as the game guy because you have five games.

33:34Tom Vasel:And you'll wear out the copy and then you'll leave it in the dorm for someone to find in the future.

33:37Eric Summerer:What? Oh, full circle. Wow, inception. Okay. Yeah, this is exciting. Congrats on finishing up with Do Well, your final year, senior year. But you are a very astute young man to be thinking about this ahead of time because I did not, even remotely. So congrats on that.

33:55Tom Vasel:Yeah. Yeah. Frankly, I'm looking forward to when my oldest moves out because I can start putting board games in their room.

34:00Eric Summerer:We need to get to that other topic. I would just show pictures of me holding my kids' stuff over like a pond to be like, what do you want done with this? But they get their stuff. Although, I swear, every time they visit from college, they always leave something. I don't know the last time I haven't shipped something.

34:19Tom Vasel:Great. I'll have to find out where the FedEx store is.

34:21Eric Summerer:It's going to be a thing, Eric. You'll find out. They'll be like, oh, I left this there and I need it.

34:24Tom Vasel:It's very important.

34:28Eric Summerer:Games. Games. Woo-hoo.

34:35Tom Vasel:They say that every rose has its thorn, but not every rose has a hula hoop.

34:42Eric Summerer:All right, Eric, I want to hear yours first because Eric hinted that one of his games is less than a nine.

34:48Tom Vasel:Yes. All right. Well, let's start with the happy one first. My rose this time is one that Tom, I think you talked about a few episodes back, Tag Team. This is an auto-battling duel game in which you draft two factions, two characters for each player, and you sort of shuffle their cards together. But you begin with two cards, just one starter card each, and you decide what order you're going to put those cards in. and then you go through the deck. And each card is going to say who is defending, who is attacking, what you do to the other players. You're going to earn some energy. You're going to build up power.

35:24Tom Vasel:You're going to attack. And you're trying to knock out your opponent or one of your opponents completely. But then after that round is done, not much is going to happen in the first round. You then get to draw three cards from this shared deck, choose one of them, and put it wherever you want in the sequence. and it becomes that rock, paper, scissors. My attack was blocked by the other player the first time we went through. So now where do I put this new card to mess up that timing so that my attack goes through next time? Do I play in the beginning to delay so that the block comes earlier? But then the other player goes, I know they're going to try and avoid the block, so I'm going to put the card in the front.

36:03Tom Vasel:And so you're playing that game plus all the powers that go with each of these individual characters. They all play a little bit differently. There's a whole bunch of fun combos to explore here. I'm not going to go into too much more detail other than tag team is a lot of fun. And just that simple concept of building your deck one card at a time and the timing, because you don't shuffle the deck, you keep them all in that order, is pretty, pretty cool.

36:29Eric Summerer:Yeah, yeah. It's such a fun game. They already said there's going to be an expansion in the box. There's an ad for the next one. Is there? I missed that. Yeah, it shows a sword and a stone. I'm like, ooh, I wonder who's coming. But even in this box, this is like the best fighting filler game I've ever played. It's such a good game.

36:52Tom Vasel:So moving on to my thorn, I have been a huge fan of the 18-card escape games, puzzle games from Grand Gamers Guild. There's a whole series of holiday-themed ones. I think there's 12 now. There's also an offshoot of the Endangered series, which I've been very happy with. This is a new series that ties into their other titles in their board game line, and the first of those is Journey to Tiernanog. This is a different designer than the holiday ones. This is actually Ken Franklin, who is known for the Mansky Caper, and he's done a lot of work with Chris Leder in designing stuff. So he's got a pedigree of lots of other board game titles.

37:32Tom Vasel:As far as I know, this is his first escape room game. In Journey to Tiernanog, you're going to work your way through these 18 cards. It uses the same system in entering your answers in. If you're familiar with the Holiday Hijinx games, you're going to know how this generally works. The difference here, though, is that while the Holiday games are generally pretty family-friendly and easy to jump into, they onboard you pretty smoothly into these puzzles. You might run into a couple of speed bumps, but it's pretty straightforward. Journey to Tir Nanog does not hold your hand. Um, it, it very quickly, even from the first puzzle, not only do you have to go with the context clues that are on the card that you're trying to figure out, but also make a couple of logical leaps that aren't necessarily presented to you have to go, well, maybe I need to organize things this way because that would make some sort of sense.

38:27Tom Vasel:Um, and, and from then on, it gets more difficult. I was asking for hints from the second question from the second puzzle this is very strong on the on word play if you enjoy word play you might be very interested in this game I am not as much of a fan of word play I like finding that makes complete sense if you know Ken yeah so there's like I don't want to spoil too much but I think I need to explain just like one of these puzzles you start, if you get stuck, I'm looking at the hint system, which is usually very good. It's like a gradient hints. So there's multiple ways that you can get just a little bit of a nudge, but then you can get more info if you need to.

39:11Tom Vasel:And I just kept going, yeah, all right, that doesn't make any sense. Like, listen to the way he phrased the question. Yes, I'm doing that. I'm not getting it. So notice there's a pause in between the way that he explained this. Okay, that still means nothing. The answer is two words. Got it. Tell me what the words are. And so my frustration level just kept going up. And then it says an acrostic is a type of. OK, OK. And so this got a little like the frustration level just kept going. and I got past that puzzle and then it was take these four words and scramble the letters to form four other words and then do that another five times to get to the end of the puzzle and then whichever letters you used, cross those out on the...

39:55Tom Vasel:It just got more and more complex. And as these... Any puzzle game has this potential to cross the line from being fun to just let me get through this. And unfortunately, I found that too many times with this game. It just, it was asking for a little bit more. It asks for not just the knowledge that's presented to you, or the, these games also give you stuff like Morse code or semaphore, that it's a reference guide that you know you're going to have to use at some point, but it's there. Like, the knowledge is there. You can find it. But this required a lot more vocabulary knowledge. You need to know a lot of words.

40:37Tom Vasel:You need to know, it felt like I was solving stuff in Games Magazine or in the local crossword puzzle newspaper column and less about me solving an escape room game. And so by the end of it, I'm just asking for hints and just get me through this. I just want to get to the end. And the final puzzle involves cursive that I'm not sure I could read even knowing how to read cursive. And I was just by the end of it, I'm just going, OK, this is not for me. If you like word puzzles, this is a place to look. But for me, this was the thorniest escape game I've run into in some time. That's Journey to Tirnanog.

41:13Send it to me. I'm curious now. I actually love word play.

41:17Tom Vasel:Oh, well, maybe you'll like it. And I'd love to hear from someone who likes this stuff. 100%. I also have played a number of the escape, what is it, 18 escape games recently. Yeah, that's what they're calling them now. Right. Not going to talk about them here. But I will say, I am curious about the hints system. The early ones I thought were great. More recently, I'm wondering if they're having the designers write them and perhaps maybe they need to look at them again and have somebody fresh do what the hint system is.

41:50Eric Summerer:All right. What about you, Julie? Have you played any great games recently?

41:57I'll start with my hula hoop.

41:59Tom Vasel:Okay. So, Katsudoku Summer Festival. I mean, I don't know if it's a hula hoop. It's probably a rose because nobody should be surprised that I would enjoy it. I think it pretty much tells you what it is. Right. So, there was the original Katsudoku was a roll and write where you roll the numbers and then you had to fill them in. And it was following Sudoku-esque rules where you couldn't have the same number. This one is a two to four player game where you're putting in cards. So you have a nine by nine grid and you have, I believe, five colors numbered one through nine perhaps. But you're putting down the cards and you can't have the same color or number orthogonal in the line or the row or column that you are placing it.

42:53However, the players score based on a specific area of the board. So you personally are going to be trying to stack your numbers in that section because you can lay cards over the previous cards. so it's a mindset of an area control funny enough but you're forced to play the cards where you can if not you put them in front of you and you have them in reserve you gain um little well if you get the bonus stuff they were fish shaped but otherwise cubes uh tokens where you if you pay two you can play one from your reserve to the board but if you have them by the end of the game they're worth negative points.

43:39That's it. That's the whole game. It was light. It was simple. It was very fun. And strategy wise, thinking about, well, I really want them in this column or this area was important. At higher playing games, it gets interesting in the sense that your area overlaps with somebody else's area. So you're both going for certain, you have alliances on occasion that work out in your favor but that's the whole game it's it's not a super heavy game it's a light game it was very fun to play and obviously the theme makes me happy so that was my rose my thorn yes okay Okay. So the other week, Eric already talked about playing four doors and how difficult it was to play.

44:36Tom Vasel:Yeah, I was pretty happy with the system, though. The system, right. So the system, very quickly, you have the four doors and they are open and bad spirits can get in if you get up to over three cards or four cards in one side or the other of the door of the shadows. you then partially close the door if it happens again you lose that door and if you lose that door and you haven't gotten the artifact from the through that door you've lost the game the object just get all four artifacts and then light the lantern at the top so gameplay wise pretty straightforward uh kind of a lighter weight game for what it's doing and then each of the players has a character that has a special ability.

45:26And you're getting to move up and down between the doors, maybe illuminate, which casts away some of the shadows and puts them back in the discard. But every time you have to go through the discard, you're upping the number of shadows that you have to put out on either side of the doors. So to me, playing it solo, you lose all the tension of coordinating with other players. One of the options and mechanics in the game is giving one of your cards to another player as one of your actions. And you have three actions that you can do. So are you giving up that action because you know they're going to be able to do a thing like that kind of tension is actually bringing a lot to the game.

46:08Okay, none of that tension exists in a solo gameplay. So I know you said you were struggling about winning. I did not. I don't know if it's also the because a lot of the specific character cards say, here's what their ability is for solo play. And here's the different thing. And the different thing just isn't it's not hidden. They're not. They're either overpowered or not balanced at all. You use an action to switch out characters. So it's not something where you're like, I am playing this one character and that's it. You can switch out. You lose an action to do it. But then also one of the cards was discard this card to switch out to another character.

46:55And so that like it just there was enough that it clearly felt like an afterthought. It didn't feel like actual gameplay. And I won, but it wasn't a satisfying gameplay. So as a solo game, I'm just qualifying this, The Four Doors is a thorn for me. All right.

47:16Tom Vasel:I played again on vacation and still haven't won the game. So it might be too hard for me.

47:22Eric Summerer:Well, like normal, I'll bring back positivity to this podcast.

47:25Tom Vasel:Yeah, that's how it usually goes. Okay. Speaking of hard, have either of you played Regicide ever?

47:33Eric Summerer:No. Yes. So Regicide is a game that I think it hit the public domain or something around 2020, I believe, is when it came out. It's a game you can play with an ordinary deck of cards. You shuffle the deck and you are fighting against the royalty, the jacks, the queens, and the kings. And so you shuffle the jacks, put them on top of the queens, put them on top of the kings. You flip over a jack, and then you draw a hand of cards, and you have to hit that jack for a certain number of hit points. So you play like maybe an eight of clubs, and you do 16 damage to the jack. Why 16? Because clubs double the value of the card.

48:18Eric Summerer:But then the card you play is discarded, and you need to play hearts to get those cards back in your deck. they hit you back so you need to play spades to block their damage because you have to keep discarding damage to the pile and also you don't get to draw cards unless you play diamonds which

48:34Tom Vasel:let you draw cards in your hand yeah what if you don't have diamonds well there are ways around it

48:39Eric Summerer:to use with the the you have two jokers that you can play and and frankly they say if you're playing multiplayer and no one draws a diamond in their first hand just reshuffle and do it again right but uh the game's really hard i've never won i've gotten to the last king but it's such an interesting game i've been playing exclusively solo i'm just really liking it but regicide legacy is even better so first of all you get a deck of cards where the suits are different now they're the same four suits in a sense but they you know a sword shows that it's double attack shield shows that it blocks it just makes it easier in your head and then after you fight these four royals things happen cards are stickered new stuff happens and then you fight a different group enemies and i won't spoil it but there's each box of this game there's 12 missions i'm on mission i'm about to do mission six tonight i think so each mission they have different enemies to fight and new things will appear would there be a new suit of cards who knows so there's things like that but it also has a very fun catch-up mechanism essentially so when you lose i'm not saying if when you lose a battle you open up the m box and i'll spoil this it's not that big of a deal m stands for mercenaries and you're like you have a coin to spend hire one mercenary put your deck and play again and then when you lose that game notice i didn't say if yeah you have two coins you could keep the same mercenary you already had and then you can hire one or two more mercenaries.

50:11Eric Summerer:Great. You know what that means? Eventually you're going to win because you're putting amazing cards in your deck. So I don't know why that makes me feel better. Like, oh, did it take you six times to beat that mission? Yes, it did. But it was fun.

50:27Tom Vasel:Then do you have to get rid of the mercenaries once you complete? Sure, sure.

50:30Eric Summerer:They go away and you start the next one with your deck. But your deck is going to change a lot. There's all kinds of different things. Again, I'm trying not to spoil many of them but your deck is going to change all the cards are sleeved um in your deck so sometimes that matters if a card's sleeve they're not new cards might show up ways to change your existing cards but the bad guys keep having you know unique ways each time i get to new and i'm like oh wow i can't lose now not with the deck the way it is then they introduce the bad guys and i go okay I'm going to lose. Okay, I could lose. But it's fun.

51:09Eric Summerer:It's a fun puzzle. There are some people who swear by playing it multiplayer. I'm not as interested in that, mostly because it has that stupid, you can't really communicate rule. And I don't know that for me in a co-op game, that kind of kills most co-op games for me. Like, oh, we can't talk to each other. Like, I got a good card. I'll just play solo. I know what cards I have. But I'm having fun playing it. I did look at some reviews online, and it does seem like after 12, there's a legacy way to play it where you just keep playing and playing. And I hope so because I don't know. If you like Regicide, you're going to love this.

51:46Eric Summerer:If you've never played Regicide, I think it's not a bad way because your first game of it is just regular Regicide. Right. And it's – I don't know. They're taking a system, and it's not a huge box. It's, you know, a little bit longer but skinnier than, say, a Carcassonne-style box. It's a little heavy because there's a lot of cards in there. And it's fun. It's really interesting. So that's my rose.

52:11Tom Vasel:Cool. So who publishes this specific version of Regicide Legacy?

52:15Eric Summerer:Badgers from Mars.

52:17Tom Vasel:Oh, those folks.

52:19Eric Summerer:So Badgers from Mars, they actually published a regular version of Regicide. Someone had to at some point, right?

52:27Tom Vasel:Oh, there's a published deck for Regicide. So they've had that.

52:30Eric Summerer:So now they made Regicide Legacy. I think it was kickstarted. I'm not 100 % sure. Yes, it was kickstarted. And so now it's out. So like I said, really, really fun. Cool. And then my hula hoop is a game called 10B. Now, I am getting – I think one of the things that we're having too much of in board gaming right now are pattern building games. Cascadia is super popular. I get it. And there's so many of these games out there, put this tile next to this and score for this and this, and they're becoming a dime a dozen.

53:09Tom Vasel:Okay.

53:09Eric Summerer:But still, sometimes one breaks the mold for me. So Tenby, which is based on a town that's in Wales, a seaside town and community there, and you're building this streets in front of you of Tenby. It's a little bit, it looks a little bit like, what's that popular pier in California? Fisherman's Wharf? No, the Venice Beach area. Yeah, they made a game on it. AEG made that game on it. I forget what it's called.

53:37Tom Vasel:Yeah, yeah. Santa Monica.

53:38Eric Summerer:Santa Monica, right. Santa Monica. And so it has a little bit of that look. It's a very cute look. But the way the game plays is really fun. There's a bunch of cards that build this pier out in front of you. And each turn in turn order, kind of like a King Domino thing. whoever's first picks a card and the card says you get to add two towns and one pier piece to your thing but also this card is numbered 14 so if you pick that one you're probably going last in the next round right yeah so i like that um and it looks cute as you put them together but everything is visually based like every card scores for the cards next to it sometimes they score for cards that are two away and there's a few buildings that score for the whole street but they'll say this card scores for seagulls on the two cards next to it so you just look for a little seagulls or those this card scores for lamps or shades or flowers in the windows and i don't know or clouds in the sky it just has a very fun feel as you're building these streets up i really am enjoying this one it's pleasant it's a good game and it's fun to build these streets when you're done you're looking to go that's my town so that's 10 b t e n b y um yeah i i was kind of went in like yeah we'll see what happens and at the end i came out really enjoying it cool nice if you think i'm too positive in this video i do six games i played so you don't have to on the youtube channel all the time so there you go check them out i'll burn them down so anyway uh yeah so things are coming up we're gonna be playing this is the the time of year where we have an embarrassment of riches of new games to play so many are coming out so we'll talk about them in future shows.

55:18Eric Summerer:But until then, I'm Tom Vassell. I'm Julie Ahern.

55:21Tom Vasel:And I'm Eric Sommerer. And we'll see you at the table. 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 what the DJ does when he goes to the B-side of the record brought to you by Fliptoons. Until next time, from all of us at the table, have fun gaming.

55:56Tom Vasel:I went to college with zero board games. I mean, I would have brought a copy of Scrabble.

56:02Eric Summerer:I took two and ended up with like 15 out of college. What do you want me to do? I play games. Yeah.