At The Table with The Dice Tower - Whirlwind Trip

11:32Yeah.

11:33Eric Summerer:Good vibes. Now, unfortunately, these cons means we don't often get to play a lot of games there, but I did. I played a prototype, which I almost never do, but there's a good reason, and I'll be announcing why I played this prototype a few months from now. Interesting. So put that in your pocket. That's mysterious. That's all I did was play prototypes.

11:56Tom Vasel:Oh, I thought you were going to say that's all I did, put things in my pocket.

11:59Eric Summerer:I also put a lot of things in my pocket.

12:01Tom Vasel:Okay.

12:01Eric Summerer:Mostly business cards. We also played games at our booth, and you'll never guess one of the games Eric played.

12:08Tom Vasel:Well, I mean, you could guess because you teased it.

12:11Eric Summerer:I did. You did.

12:13Tom Vasel:Citadel's Duel. Indeed. I did play Citadel's Duel, and I had a lovely time doing so, although I lost. I played that game three times, or I guess I played once solo, and then we brought in other people, and I was assisting. I lost every time in Citadel's Duel. What happened? I mean, I just couldn't. We were playing against the primary developer, so there was a little bit of an advantage shift there. But I do find it an enjoyable game. I think it's more targeted. My issues with the original are that it felt random when the assassin took me out, but because it's the dual version, there's a little bit more control over the drafting.

12:54Tom Vasel:I know what I've handed. Like, you start out with four cards, and you hand two to your opponent, So you know two of the ones in their hand. Then you ditch one and one goes buried, leaving you with three cards when you're done. So I know if I'm going to target with the assassin or the thief, I have a better idea of what's there. Yeah, it felt it still feels mean sometimes, but you're only taking out one of the three characters and not somebody's entire turn if you use the assassin successfully. So I appreciated that. There's some cool board position aspects to the game. I liked it.

13:32Eric Summerer:All right, then. That's cool.

13:34Tom Vasel:I know. It's almost disappointing that I'm not going to scream about it.

13:38Eric Summerer:No, no, no, no. I would not. I really thought you would like it. Yeah. So that was not a, it wasn't like I was trying to torture Eric. I thought it would be an interesting concept. Come full circle kind of moment. Yes. It redeemed the title. All right. Speaking of gaming there, I finally, this is, it's been a long time coming, but I finally made my way over to the JW Marriott. So we stayed at the Marriott this year, which is a nice hotel, but the JW Marriott, which is the one hotel, in my opinion, that feels like it's part of the convention. Like when you go to JW Marriott, you feel like you're still in Gen Con completely.

14:18Eric Summerer:I don't know how to explain it. That's interesting, but okay.

14:21Tom Vasel:Okay. I mean, there were events going on in our hotel as well. If you were on the second floor, there's -

14:25Eric Summerer:In every hotel. Yes. Yes, yes. Maybe it's just me. It just felt like – it just feels like you're still in the building. If you blink, do you think you're still in the ICC and the JW Marriott? That's all. I don't know. Okay. Anyway, I went all the way over there because I wanted to check out Open Gaming. I've never seen it before. Even though I've been busy. They have a big ballroom on the third floor, the Grand Ballroom. That's for Open Gaming. Really? Yeah. Yeah, and it did have Open Gaming. There wasn't an open table to be seen. Oh. And I did amusingly stop by somebody who was playing Final Girl.

14:57And I said, huh, this is not something I've seen at a convention before.

15:01Eric Summerer:And he's like, no, it's a really good game. I was like, yes, I'm not arguing. Oh, my gosh. That's adorable. But it's solo. He was taking up half a table. I was like, all right. Well, you seem like you're having fun. No one seemed to be complaining. So, hooray. Yeah.

15:17Tom Vasel:It's a conversation starter. the raptor games was the new it's the last one that i got to play while and help play test

15:29Eric Summerer:of of the final girls so that was that was fun because all of the van rider booth staff had safari like the khaki shirts with like a safari patch like jurassic park kind of look And that was really fun to watch them run around, which I did a lot of because speaking of, I ran Thursday and Friday from the JW Marriott all the way through the convention center to Lucas Oil Stadium on the other side and back multiple times because my planning did not include one of those, one of the playtesting events. being in Lucas Oil Stadium. And it was. So I got my steps in this past weekend. That is definitely a walk from one to the other.

16:29Eric Summerer:I was just glad. I kind of like moseying through those hotels and moseying around because you get to see so many little rooms of people doing stuff. And even the rooms, the game rooms themselves on the first floor of the ICC that are across from the exhibit hall have become kind of such a big deal. You know, all these companies have rooms there, and many of them are taking those rooms more seriously than they take the exhibit hall. Because you have space, right?

17:03Tom Vasel:Because it's their space they can control.

17:05Eric Summerer:Yeah, I know. I kind of want one of those rooms. I'm trying to remember which booth it was. They color matched the wall so that it looked like the outside of theirs looked like it was busting through the wall kind of thing. They had matched, color matched everything so it looked like something had slammed through and created a bigger opening type of thing.

17:32Tom Vasel:Oh, interesting.

17:33Eric Summerer:And then there was the Warhammer had smoking fire, not real, obviously, on either side of theirs. And that was not right across from the main hall, but the one headed towards the JW Marriott, because there are also rooms that way. And I feel like even there, because it's a little bit quieter, I say quieter in a very relative term, there's still plenty of traffic, but because there's a little bit more space, some of that stuff was also just, I think even more spectacled to catch the eye of people who are going from point A to point B. Yeah.

18:15Tom Vasel:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very epic.

18:18Eric Summerer:Well, the first day of the Gen Con is, like I said, very, very busy and crowded. But it's always a little bit stressful for us. By a little bit, I mean all of us are about to die of stress because of the Dice Tower Awards. We're so very thankful, all of us, that they're on the first night because once they're done, And I don't care what happens to the rest of Gen Con.

18:39Tom Vasel:The stress level goes way down after that first step. Well, for some of us, the stress level goes way down.

18:45Eric Summerer:Yes. But yes. Well, I mean, stress was up for Eric, who put on his opening number and did okay, wearing a pawn on his head. Did okay.

18:53Tom Vasel:I did okay. It's fine. Everything was fine. No, I mean, what really helped with the stress level is that there's a fantastic tech team that makes everything run. Also, a lot of the work is front-loaded. Like all the video preparation and the interstitials and the presentation sequence and all of that stuff is done beforehand, setting up all the trophies so that actually doing the show is not that difficult. We basically just have to execute all of the sequence steps, announce some winners and smile and clap. And that is far easier than all the prep stuff that goes into it, at least after the first two minutes of the show.

19:29Eric Summerer:Speak for yourself, for me. Yes. I mean, let's not belittle Eric's. I mean, he's practicing hard and does a really great job coming out there. Yes, he does.

19:39Tom Vasel:It was a night of silly hats.

19:41Eric Summerer:Yes, it was. There was a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes and a lot of skits. And it was very amusing and we felt very good. And afterwards we went to the party. But I do have a complaint about Gen Con in general. Okay. And it's from this party and the other parties is, why does everyone at Gen Con think that we want to stand in a crowded room that's really loud and yell the whole time?

20:08Tom Vasel:You're talking about any of these after parties that are held in restaurants.

20:11Eric Summerer:Oh, my word. I just felt like I was, you know, when you have to lean in someone's face and shout at them, first of all, I need to bring like breath mints to every single one of these. But it just, it's so, I mean, I find that stuff to be more exhausting than anything else. And I'm glad to be there, of course, and talk to people. But you want to win me over? Invite me to a party in a quiet area. There's only so much space, though. There are no quiet areas to be had, Tom. That's part of the problem. I will say the following evening, for the second year in a row, I was on an outdoor rooftop patio while it was raining and didn't care because it was quieter.

20:51Tom Vasel:Yeah, at one point we found like a little couch in a corner and played a game on the ottoman. And it was nice and quiet. It was actually quite pleasant.

21:01Eric Summerer:So we mentioned some of the hits of the show, some of the games. There was no like one game that necessarily dominated the show. I do think that lighter games were very much in demand. And everywhere you go, you're finding light, small, fun, or medium-weight games. There's a lot of that going on, and I am very much on board with that. Lots of just people having a great time playing games. CCGs are back. Love them or hate them, collectible card games are here right now. And the Lorkana, I thought Lorkana a few years ago that that had died out, but no. There was a line, yep. Every morning I would show up around 5.30, 5.45.

21:50Eric Summerer:I'd be like just trundle around and just go play pinball or something. And there was a line already for Lurkana every morning. And that wasn't the only one. There was the I-Core game from Upper Deck. There's the League of Legends game. That one's escaping my mind. Riftbound. Yeah, Riftbound. A Pal World. There's the new one that they're making, Hellbound, which is like based on the Universal Studios horror. Which looks really great. It does look really great. I remember seeing that in prototype. I think it was two years ago where they were showing like play testings of it. That was really cool.

22:28Yeah.

22:29Eric Summerer:If you like collectible card games, again, love it or hate it. They're here for right now. We're seeing the biggest resurgence since the 90s. And they were very popular. But they're not it. dungeon crawling, D &D, and all the different competitors to D &D, Pathfinders, they're also having resurgence, and I honestly think the lit RPG thing is helpful in that regard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you like gaming, there's really, you can't go to Origins, Gen Con, all these different things, and say one type of gaming is dominating. I don't think so. I think it's really spread across the board. No, I agree.

23:05Eric Summerer:And I think that's great for the hobby. Like, Whatever you're looking for, there are definitely people who are going to play that with you.

23:11Tom Vasel:Yes. Celebration of everything. All right. Eric put on here, favorite non-game purchase activity. Yes.

23:20Eric Summerer:So what is it?

23:22Tom Vasel:I got, much like Tom's recommendation, I spent almost a whole morning wandering the artist's alley and picked up some cool standees of Fox characters from one of the illustrators and then swung around to the author's alley, ran into the Sadler Brothers, who are doing a lot of book work these days. And I also, I was browsing one of the displays. These authors have, you know, brought whole racks to put all their different titles on. And I saw a book I recognized, Gudnak Means War, which is the one we talked about the other week that isn't actually out yet. I think it's premiering in a couple weeks.

24:03Tom Vasel:It missed Gen Con. But they had it on display. And so I asked them, and he was the editor on this collection of short stories. He's like, yeah, I was the editor on Gunnack Meets War. And I said, I was the narrator on Gunnack Meets War. And then we had a nice little moment. He said, come with me. And we went across the hall to another person who also had the book on display. And we met like both editors. And we took pictures and social media things. And it was like this whole big confab. It was lovely.

24:31Eric Summerer:I enjoyed it. well Julie I fell again what our favorite space artist and I'm so sorry I forgot his name Alan Panikoff thank you I went by his booth and I said listen I can't buy one of your big paintings every year you know I just I just can't afford it he said well the small ones are a good deal so I have two more of those amazing the small ones are a good deal amazing but actually I bought a lot of art this year. I think I bought seven different small pieces and one large one because Dragonsteel was there showing off Brandon Sanderson, who's very hot right now. And right next to their booth was one of the main Brandon Sanderson artists and I got suckered in.

25:15Eric Summerer:I bought another big painting. But I mean, when I come back, I'm almost more excited about the art than I am about the games. Don't get me wrong, I like playing the games, but man, that art is just cool. I also bought a couple RPG books. I bought a Pirate Borg supplement because I've really been enjoying the Pirate Borg Pirate Borg game we've been playing and then I bought some random superhero one that wasn't tied to any you know IP it was something that they made up I just bought it to read it I'll buy that occasionally and then I may have bought some dice but I can't remember no one can prove anything

25:55Tom Vasel:just here move along I found a karaoke musical RPG which I'm excited to try out with or handed it to my son who's like, this will be great with my theater friends. It looks fun. It's called Jukebox. I can't wait to not play it. I got the, well, that's,

26:15Eric Summerer:so Chaosium released a last year, 50 year of Gen Con, Call of Cthulhu Adventure, Madness at Geneva Lake. And so I got that. Sweet, sweet. Speaking of that, Eric, I forgot to ask you, at the Paizo has like a whole new line of board games out. Did you look at any of them?

26:39Tom Vasel:Oh, golly. There was like a Pathfinder Adventure box.

26:44Eric Summerer:Which I think is different than the old Pathfinder card game.

26:48Tom Vasel:I do think it is a board game of some sort. I just happened to, or Pathfinder Quest, I think it's called. But no, I didn't get a close look at it.

26:57Eric Summerer:I haven't even opened the stuff that we came back with yet. And it's a humongous pile here. In the art. So I walked through all the art, but I was in the middle of the day where it was absolutely swamped and couldn't get to anything. So I left pretty quickly. And then Kira came over on Sunday and said, here, I got you this little mushroom pin. And I said, oh, that's so interesting. Where? and she took me over into Artists Alley where Mushroom Trove had art, but also an extensive line of mushroom pins. And I bought a lot, not all, but many of them, all different colors, all different species of mushrooms.

27:42Eric Summerer:And they're all very accurate to the species while also being very sparkly. And that was... You know what? I know what Mushroom Place you're talking about. I definitely considered that. I was like, I don't need mushroom art. But I thought about it. Speaking of pins, they were huge. Yes. Again, this is something that's not dying out. Everywhere you go, people were selling pins or giving pins away. There were pins everywhere. And not only people collecting pins, but I've never seen ribbon collecting like I saw at this one. I was turning down ribbons because I don't collect – there's only so many things I can collect.

28:21Eric Summerer:I saw a picture of someone online who did a ribbon thing where they did it from the balcony and it went all the way down to the floor.

28:27Tom Vasel:Yes. And that was all collected that convention. I think it was some 400 something ribbons they got. That's amazing.

28:33Eric Summerer:I know somebody who's a vendor who also has their own ribbons but also goes and collects them who has several different ribbon skirts at this point that she wears during the show. So she's sewn them all together. Neat. Yeah. That makes sense. That's a fun thing.

28:51Tom Vasel:Very cool. You know, the other thing that seemed to be everywhere was trinket trading. That seems to be a thing that's going on at conventions now. There was one guy that just every morning sat by one of the corridors and just had trinket stuff out. I saw some of the booths that had trinket trading.

29:09Eric Summerer:Did you find the bad advice wizard who gives away a potato with his advice? Yes. I was so happy to see that. Actually, Julia, I read a thing online about him. Apparently, there's three of them. ah amazing and they're brothers and so they said that they gave out like 8 000 pieces of bad advice or whatever i i didn't i was so busy i didn't have time to ask for some bad advice but i wish i had well what's funny is it's typically not bad advice they ask some like they ask you for a specific question and then they ask some follow-up questions and then they give it and they say it's bad advice because they don't know your particular story and whether the advice will be good for you or not.

29:48Eric Summerer:But genuinely, it's not usually bad advice. Because I was saying, how do I, if I have a meeting, if I have a meeting in Lucas Oil Stadium, and I have to make the meeting in the next hour for the JW Marriott, how do I handle that? And they basically talked about setting personal boundaries and telling people that when the meeting is over. Wait, what? Yeah. And it was hilarious. They could open up a little shop. Yeah. And I was like, great. Did you get a potato? I did. I also got a potato. I mean, this is like a win-win situation. I know. I will say, Eric, I'm not a huge fan. Please don't burn me at the stake, folks listening, of the trinket trading because I feel like it's a bunch of little stuff you're not going to do anything with.

30:32Eric Summerer:No. It's a lot of 3D printed stuff.

30:34Tom Vasel:It does seem that way, but people are very excited about it.

30:38Eric Summerer:I'm not as excited about that. Like pins, you can pin the stuff. Ribbons, you can wear. Trinkets, your husband can get and then put around the house. for you to find, and then the cats steal them and hide them under the couch.

30:51Tom Vasel:That's a very specific example, but yes. The coolest thing I saw walking through the halls was a dog carrying a lightsaber. An actual dog. This wasn't cosplay. This was a canine carrying a Sith-colored lightsaber in its mouth and walking along the hallway. And I just saw it passing by, just going about its business. I think it had an owner. And moving on with its day, it was a surprise, a delightful surprise.

31:22Eric Summerer:It had signed up for an event.

31:25Tom Vasel:It had to be somewhere. All right. I wrote down memorable fan interactions. I didn't have one immediately. I just wanted to leave room for it if either of you had a story to tell.

31:36Eric Summerer:I did. I was out in the hallway sitting crisscross applesauce, just eating my lunch because I packed my lunch from home and having a quiet moment. And a bunch of people were walking by and somebody looped back and said, I'm so sorry to interrupt your food time, but I love you on the Dice Tower. It was like mid-chew. And it was very - That is awesome. And then they were like, I'm so sorry. I'm going to go now. I didn't mean to interrupt you and then ran away again. So that was fun. I'm just I'm always so thankful for this sort of thing this is I tell people this all the time this is what make conventions so good you everything else we're tired we're exhausted there's games things go wrong all that stuff but talking to people when you tell us that you enjoy what we do that feels amazing and it helps keep us going

32:32Tom Vasel:I did have somebody say that we were responsible for them getting married, but it was a whole convoluted series of events. But we were involved in some way. So that was nice.

32:45Eric Summerer:Nice. That was nice. Yes. I'll accept that. I mean, as long as they're happily married.

32:50Tom Vasel:Yes. I mean, yeah. They seemed happy. All right. So we have to cap things off. Say it, Eric. There was a weather event that hit Indianapolis. Indianapolis during Gen Con. And it began with heavy rain, which we knew was coming. And so they were shutting down the food trucks, the block party, they call it. They were shutting that down. So people were just sort of bummed and worrying about dinner that evening. And then the sirens went off. And there was a tornado warning in the hall. I was actually running register in the booth when this happened. and we heard the thing. I was interacting with somebody.

33:34Tom Vasel:They were buying some promos and they're like, that sounds like a tornado siren. Yeah. And we all check our phones and we confirm, yes, that's a tornado warning. And about 30 seconds later, they got on the PA with the announcement saying, get away from the walls and the exterior windows and basically said the safest place is in the interior rooms of the center, which was the exhibit hall. And so we then looked at each other and said, I guess we're continuing as if nothing has changed. And we continued selling promos and talking to people.

34:09Eric Summerer:Excuse me, Eric. Yes. But I would like to say the announcement was, ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? We are presently under a tornado warning. Please remain calm, but it is necessary for you to proceed to the interior rooms of the building. Security personnel are standing by to assist you. Please move away from any windows, docks or exterior walls. Thank you. and I think I have that almost memorized because I said it one million times and then there was a minor pause and then it would start up again it was about every 90 to 120 seconds I was in the Arcane Wonders booth for their raffles that they do at 5 o 'clock every day so it was jam-packed Robert was standing on the biplane with his little World War I outfit doing raffle tickets to give away games because Arcane Wonders you purchase something you get a raffle ticket and then they draw raffles for free games at the end of the day.

35:00Eric Summerer:And when I tell you this is maybe the 15th tornado warning that's happened here in Indy this summer. So he and I were like, eh. Business as usual. There were several people that were super freaked out, but both of us were like, oh yeah, and yet another one. And his laissez-faire attitude really kept everybody calm.

35:27Tom Vasel:That's true. In this situation, whereas I got a phone call from Price, Cephala Fair, and I answer it in the very busy hall.

35:40Eric Summerer:And I'm like, hello. He's like, should I panic? Should I be worried? I was like, I mean, you can if that helps.

35:50Tom Vasel:Everybody seemed very calm. I mean, there was like an extra ratcheting level of tension, but there was no like screaming and yelling and running.

35:58Eric Summerer:It was just everybody just sort of ratcheted up the tension and came inside. The tornado wasn't actually over the building, despite the sensationalism. It wasn't right over us. It was further east, southeast from us. But the rain, however, was definitely over us and caused flood damage inside. Just not where we were. Unfortunately, it caused – yeah. Fortunately, can you imagine if the exhibit hall had gotten hit? I can. But the stadium was cleared and some spots there, some of the spots in the gaming area got wet. And a few of the hotels, I believe Union Station in particular, got nailed. You can see pictures of all that online.

36:41Eric Summerer:when we were leaving that night when i came back i saw many areas where it was kind of flooded i haven't heard much details i know that there was people banding together to protect games yes covering them up um i haven't heard about too much merchandise getting destroyed but i mean i i'm assuming some stuff was i was kind of amazed because i had some people i was taking out to dinner that night and i was like well i guess that's not happening but at six when the hall clothes we went outside and it was sunshine it blew my mind it was beautiful i mean there were a couple restaurants i remember uh the former brewery that's now a sports bar we went there the next day and they were opening a little bit later than usual because they had to take care of water stuff yeah so so yeah there was definitely because there are a lot it's a lot of old buildings downtown too.

37:34Eric Summerer:Yeah. But mostly, mostly it turned around pretty quickly. Yeah.

37:40Tom Vasel:I did see some merchandise damage. I think one of the vendors in Lucas Oil Stadium wasn't able to completely shut down. They had to basically evacuate and they got rained on. But mostly, it was mostly just demo copies of things that got wet and it happened slowly enough with the roof leak that they were able to move things out of the way before you saw the video where it was basically raining inside.

38:03Eric Summerer:Right.

38:04Tom Vasel:The people got out of the way before it was at that point.

38:07Eric Summerer:Well, that's good. Yes. It definitely was a thing. It was interesting and a way to sort of end the kind of happened on Saturday. Sunday was the technical end of the convention. But overall, I had a really good time. I'm not upset that it's over. You know, with some cool down. I mean, and I'm really excited. I love the end of Gen Con. I really do, to come back and be like, wow, for the next three or four months, so many good games. So many things to play, yeah. So many things I'm excited about. Some of them won't be that exciting, but some will. So I guess that leads us into talking about games.

38:45Tom Vasel:Let's do it.

38:51Tom Vasel:They say that every rose has its thorn, but not every rose has a hula hoop.

38:57Eric Summerer:Like I said, I did not have a ton of time to play published games. I played dozens of prototypes, which was super fun. And I can't talk about any of those yet. Oh, well. But, so I did get to play a couple of small games, though. Uh-oh, Dino, which is a cooperative family board game by Ludominal. Ludominal? Ooh, great. Can't pronounce that. Ludoliminal. Ludo-liminal.

39:28Tom Vasel:Ludo-liminal. That's cool. Yes.

39:29Eric Summerer:Where players work together as a family of Stegosaurus to rescue eggs from, you know, the disaster that was the end of the dinosaurs. So you are playing and your goal is to rescue the eggs. So whether you live as a Stegosaurus isn't important. It's about rescuing the eggs. and so on your turn you blind draw from a bag on one side it will give you the number of actions you can do from three to five and then on the other side it will tell you more often than not what disaster has incurred which can be lava or an earthquake or it might have food food letting you do extra actions. You can leapfrog over other dinosaurs, or you're moving, and then you're picking up the eggs, and there's a little slot in the back of each of the little wooden stegosaurus.

40:29Eric Summerer:I don't know if you would call them full meeples, because there is literally a slot in the back of them that the eggs fit into. And then you carry them back up to the safety area. You have, and each disaster is separating the board. So it becomes harder and harder to navigate the board. And as the teutonic plates of the board separate, if they aren't attached to anything, they just fall away. So your stegosaurus can, in fact, fall away, get into the magma or the lava. It's above ground. The magma, you know, eventually to be found in a tar pit. That kind of a thing. it's meant to be family friendly it is it's definitely easy for to understand and then at the very end however many eggs you've saved lets you gives you a certain number of dice roll and what's on them which is the symbols that also move the plates uh so that you have a better chance of your fossils being found and therefore in that way surviving so it's very family friendly i would say that by itself it is not a rose for me but with the expansion that adds comets and raptors who are trying to eat the eggs at the same time it becomes a rose for me because the degree of difficulty is definitely kid friendly without it and with it adds the degree of challenge of a cooperative game where you're puzzling out spatial the spatial movement piece while the board is continuing to move.

42:04Eric Summerer:So that was Uh-Oh Dinos. But again, I strongly recommend with the expansion of Comets and Raptors. This makes a lot more sense. I was reading that like, Uh-Oh Dinos? I was like, what does that mean?

42:17Tom Vasel:Uh-Oh Dinos.

42:19Eric Summerer:No, Uh-Oh. Uh-Oh Dinos.

42:23Tom Vasel:Got it.

42:24Eric Summerer:So if you have a family, play it without the expansion. But if you want to play it with older kids or just gamers, play it with the expansion. And then the other one that I played because it is very easy is Le Chocolat from Allplay. It's a two-player board game. You have a seven by five grid and it's a, I split you choose. Once there's pieces are broken up to three or smaller, you take a grouping of them. Some of them you can see are double-sided. Some of them you don't know what's on the side so they could be plus or minus and you're just doing a point salad thing. It's very quick. And it's just about the trying to get the best pieces and have the most points.

43:09Eric Summerer:It's very light. So for me, it was a hula hoop. I was thinking there'd be more to the game, but seeing as I didn't have a lot of time, it was actually a delightful just, I can play this right now. I have time to. So for a convention, it definitely did its job. I don't know if I'd necessarily bring it out to the game night, but walking around with it in my backpack at a show, it was the perfect bite size of game that I could do.

43:36Tom Vasel:Very cool. All right. Next for me is the game Tom talked about as the big CGE hit. That is Drillers. This is the game I played on the ottoman in a corner of the hotel. Drillers is a deck-building game about sending your machines down into a multi-layered... It's not really a deck. I guess it's a dungeon. It's a multi-layered board that the farther you go down, the more lucrative the cubes you are collecting will be. Your deck has symbols that generate currency. Many of these cards need to be paid for. You have the concept of fuel. You'll start out with a full fuel tank at the top at the surface.

44:18Tom Vasel:and then you can spend and generate that fuel in order to efficiently move down into the mine. So each of the cards has a cost if you want to play it for its action, which will generate drilling ability and movement ability and other effects, or I can play it to earn fuel, to sort of burn it to be able to refill my fuel tank, which is a cool economy already. That has me excited. You're using this movement and drilling ability to move down into various levels And then at first, levels are locked up. You can't get too far until you spend drilling to break that barrier. Anytime you break a barrier or do some drilling in that level, that corridor, which will unlock some cubes, you get a little cardboard piece that says, I just drilled this section of the mine.

45:09Tom Vasel:This goes on a notched track on your player board. And that is the endgame trigger. It's also a bonus trigger. If I'm the first one to fill that track to a certain point, I will get a bonus points at the end of the game. Everybody else gets a little mini bonus. Oh, you didn't get this particular milestone, but you get to draw a card or you get some coins, whatever. But that is the trigger. When I fill that up, that's going to end the game. But I can reduce that track by getting enough cubes, by mining a particular color. If I overflow my sell pile, I'm going to get coins for selling these cubes.

45:47Tom Vasel:It fills up another track that sort of comes from the other direction, sort of like Ark Nova, where at some point these two things are going to cross, the cubes and the tiles, and that will trigger the endgame. So the more stuff I collect, the easier it will be for me to end the game, which is a big bonus if I can make that happen. There's also some cool stuff with the way you can manipulate your deck. You get to see the first card in your deck, and sometimes you can trash that, manipulate that. Your starting cards have negative points on them. There's even one card that's really powerful, but it's like an old broken drill that immediately breaks.

46:21Tom Vasel:And just, it's out of your deck after you get to use it the first time. Some really cool manipulation of getting the cards, these awesome abilities as you get new ones. Some of them require you to have gotten one of those milestone tiles, which you then flip over. And now it's worth fewer points, but you get to do some sort of cool ability. This game's full of choices, which I really appreciate. It feels like a puzzle every turn. I'm really enjoying moving my mech around, and it really pushes all my buttons. That's Drillers. That was a rose for me.

46:55Eric Summerer:Looking forward to it.

46:56Tom Vasel:Yeah. Not so rosy is a game called Panic Lab. This is a reprint of this title. This was out a few years ago. Panic Lab is, think of a game like Set. This is a game where you have a tableau, you've got a situation in front of you, and you are trying to find the thing as fast as possible. These tiles are put in a big old ring around the table. There are some entry points, some, like, containment zones in three different colors. There are lots of different creatures, and there's a couple of other special tiles around this ring. And then you roll three dice. The dice are going to tell you, is it three or four?

47:35Tom Vasel:Four dice. The dice are going to tell you what type of creature you're looking for. The creatures come in two different shapes. There's like a one-eyed version and a two - or three-eyed version. There's a body shape. There's a color. There's like a yellow-orange warm color palette and then a cool turquoise purple color palette. So it's one of those two. I think those are the three variables. Size, number of eyes, and color palette. And so that's rolled and also a starting point. So I'm looking for the blue machine and I'm going counterclockwise. And I'm trying to find the creature that matches that.

48:13Tom Vasel:Okay, so far so good. The first person that says, that's the creature, that's the first one along this row, gets a point. And you're playing to a certain number of points. However, there are grates. And if you run into a great, you have to go to the next great, skipping over a certain number of tiles. There's also transition devices that change one body type into another or one color palette into another. And if you run into those, now you're looking for, instead of a cool color alien, a warm color alien. And now your brain has to do all of this flippy floppy stuff to get there. That's the game you play to a certain number of points.

48:51Tom Vasel:And on its face, it's just one of those, can you work it out as fast as possible? What made this a thorn for me is that I ran into a situation where I just could not process this information fast enough. I kept my the way my brain was working. I needed to translate it into words in order for me to process what the dice said I was looking for. And I couldn't come up with a fast enough mnemonic or speed way of doing that to beat the kid who was across from me and able to just visualize it instantly. Yeah, I'm looking for that. I'm here. and it was just the most frustrating experience I've had playing a game in a while.

49:29Tom Vasel:I think this is just, this is not a game for me. It could be age. It could be just the way my brain works. But I tried a number of times. Like, please, everyone shut up. I just need to figure this out.

49:47Tom Vasel:And I passed it on to the family I played it with. It is a fun game if your brain works that way and you like that sort of visual puzzle solving and speed style of game. This just isn't my style of game. That's Panic Lab. Thorny for me, but your family may like it.

50:05Eric Summerer:All righty. First, I want to talk about Invincible, the hero building game season two. Season two. This is Invincible, the hero building game, which is a cooperative deck building, not bag building game. Bag building, yeah. Where you're fighting against, you know, going through some missions from the first season of the cartoon. You'll never guess what season this one comes from.

50:26Tom Vasel:Is it from season two, Tom?

50:28Eric Summerer:It is. What? They had four new different characters that you can be, including Duplicate and I forget all their names.

50:39Tom Vasel:I played Duplicate at Dice Tower East. It was fun.

50:42Eric Summerer:Man, I'll tell you what. These new characters are so much fun. This is one of those expansions where you're like, yes, it adds new missions, new characters, and that's it. It adds one small new mechanism, a new cube that gets thrown in bags that hurt you but are wild. Or not wild, but there's some extra cubes. But it's not particularly egregious. You can just throw this in the base game and no one would even notice, which would give you now eight different characters to pick from. The four new characters are all very fun to play also. You said you played duplicate, Eric?

51:15Tom Vasel:I played as duplicate. That's the only one I've played.

51:18Eric Summerer:A very interesting character. Very low hit points. But she makes duplicates. So if you kill her and that gets rid of one of the duplicates on the board, another one's like, I'm still around. Quick, make another one before you die again. Right.

51:29Tom Vasel:Yeah. Yeah. As long as there's one other copy on the board, you're not dead.

51:34Eric Summerer:Yeah. I try not to think of the implications of that to her psyche. But, you know.

51:42Eric Summerer:It's very fun. So this is a rose. I very much enjoy this. It's like I said, it's that kind of expansion. I really love expansions that just give you more stuff.

51:53Tom Vasel:There were a lot of expansions at Gen Con, just quick tangent, a lot that are just more things. Let's just stick 10 new cards into this system.

52:01Eric Summerer:Yes. What's sort of what I'm talking about here with Chronologic Babylon 2500. This is the third in the series of Chronologic. There was Chronologic Paris 1920, then Chronologic Cusco 1450. now chronologic babylon 2500 from fabian griddle and yohan levett these are logic deduction games the theme well let's be honest it doesn't matter i was very excited like oh this is in the future it's space you know what no one cares oh i would like to really get into the theme of this but it doesn't really matter. I will say this. Have you ever played Chrotonologic before? No? Then don't start with this one.

52:47Eric Summerer:This is a good one, but oof, is it complex. The lowest scenario is a two, which doesn't sound too complicated, but that's because it's basically baby steps for a harder version. In this game, there are six different people who are moving around from room to room over six different periods of time. And in the first set of scenarios, you need to find when there are exactly three people looking at the same symbol in the same room and figure out what the four-digit code is. Sounds simple. It's not. The last six scenarios in this one, there are six different frames of time. Have you guys, either of you played chronologic?

53:30Tom Vasel:Yes. I've been anxiously awaiting this one.

53:33Eric Summerer:Eric, the last one of this, there are six different things of time. You have to figure out what order they're in. Because I guess this is thematic. I guess it's a time change. So you have to figure out which order things happen in based on how the characters move from room to room. Whoa. I know. So I, like a good teacher, taught this to some people who had played Chronologic and to some people who never had played Chronologic. Whoops. Oh, no. Also to people who were very, very tired from driving a long time. Oh, no. He, he, he. Now, I will say, though, I thoroughly enjoyed this. And so this is another rose because I went in expecting it.

54:18Eric Summerer:But I will say, going into this, be warned, this is not the one to play first.

54:25Tom Vasel:Yeah.

54:25Eric Summerer:This is definitely more complex. If you've never played any of the chronologic games before, I cannot emphasize. I think they're some of the best deduction games around. Chrono Logic Paris 1920 is your best bet. It's solid. You just want to jump into. It is a game where you each turn you basically ask the game a question and it gives everyone at the table an answer but gives you a specific piece of information. And you just keep doing that until someone figures it out. And that's how all the games work. But each one has I think there are – there's 15 or 18 cases per box. And the good news is unless you are extremely brilliant, which I am not, you won't remember any of them.

55:07Eric Summerer:So by the time you're done, you can go back and play them all again. And I'm serious because I've only played one from this Chronologic Babylon 2500 and I could play it again because I already forgot what happened.

55:19Tom Vasel:Forgotten everything. Yeah.

55:22Eric Summerer:But I really do like this series. I'm very impressed with it. So I'm looking forward to messing with it some more. but I'm a little nervous because I think this one will be the one I played at least because who am I going to play it with? It has to be people who already have played the original one and want more.

55:43Tom Vasel:Yeah. This does seem to be a design philosophy that we're seeing with series of games that they really aren't hand-holding when they get to the third or fourth chapter. They're assuming at this point that you're familiar with what we've done in the past And this is the advanced version.

56:00Eric Summerer:That is partially true. It's also the fact that on the designer end, they have want to do something new and creative with it. Because, you know, when you're iterating, it's a little bit harder to do something new with it. And most designers themselves think that it's too easy at that point because they've been living in the design space. So they also might lose a little bit of sight of that.

56:26Tom Vasel:A little perspective. Yeah. You got to dial it back just a hair because we haven't played it a million times like you have.

56:32Eric Summerer:From multiple experiences at this point.

56:37Tom Vasel:Okay.

56:38Eric Summerer:All right. Man. All right. Like I said, I'm in a very good mood at this point because even though I'm tired and exhausted from Gen Con, I'm excited to play a bunch of fun games.

56:50Tom Vasel:Me too. So many tokens to punch. So many tokens. Essence Spiel is around the corner, but that is so far away right now.

56:58Eric Summerer:It's not. But it feels far away that I can work on this. Lie to me, Tom, please. Lie to me. It's about a year away, Julia. Thank you. But in reality, very much looking forward to playing some games, looking forward to just having a good time playing games. And here's the thing. These conventions, we never want to make them feel, when you're listening to us talk about them, I never wanted to make it feel like, oh, we had to go. I had a really good time and it was really good to see all of y 'all. But my best, my favorite thing about the hobby is meeting people and playing games. Those are my two favorite things.

57:31Eric Summerer:And so I've met lots of people and now I want to play some games. Yes, me. So that's where we're heading. Until next time though, you've been listening to At The Table. Wait, I'm supposed to say it, sorry.

57:42Tom Vasel:Yeah, that's last.

57:43Eric Summerer:Until next time, I'm Tom Vassell. I'm Julie Ahern.

57:47Tom Vasel:And I'm Eric Summer.

57:49Eric Summerer:And I already said the other part.

57:50Tom Vasel:Yeah, yeah, yeah. 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 the best-selling personal computers in the world are brought to you by Dominant PCs. Until next time, from all of us at the table, have fun gaming.

58:24Eric Summerer:Okay, so I've been at a convention where a hurricane got involved. I've been at one where a tornado. A W101 where it was close to a blizzard. I haven't yet done an earthquake one yet. No, thank you. But I'm okay. Earthquake Con. Nor volcanoes. Unless we go to Hawaii. Can we go to Hawaii? Yes, let's do that. Is that worth it to take the 0.0 %? Yes, I agree.