Boardgames To Go 231 - Online Boardgame Group for Two (with Dave Arnott and Mike Mayer)

Board Games To Go 231, online game club for two, with Dave Arnott and Mike Mayer.

You're hearing Board Games To Go, a podcast about family strategy board games.

I'm your host, Mark Johnson, coming to you from Santa Clarita, California,

and this podcast is for September 1st, 2024.

This podcast, home on the web, is at BoardGamesToGo.com.

Okay, this month I have another interview with two of my buddies,

and what they're going to be talking about, as you can tell from the title of the show,

is online gaming, which lots of people do these days,

but they have a multi-year thing going where it really feels,

rather than just getting together with buddies once in a while,

it feels like a regular game club, a game group, game night, whatever those things are.

And, although it's not exclusive,

exclusively for two, it is mostly for those two.

And I just thought that had some interesting perspectives,

both on the games they played, and the nature of this club,

and the fact that they live on opposite coasts,

and we're going to hear all about that.

Let's see, before that happens, I'm going to hit you with the opener.

And the opener, it's funny, it's going to tie in a little bit to the closer as well.

The opener this time, a game I played recently, is Wayfarers of the South Tigris.

Now, when I played this game,

and I played it just a couple times, actually, but in successive weeks, I think,

I thought it was brand-spanking-new.

I didn't realize it's two years old.

That's still pretty darn new for me.

And I, of course, instantly recognized it from, like, the artwork and production

as part of the Garphill Games series.

It's got that distinctive artwork, and it's got that sort of trilogy-type format, right?

They started with the North series several years ago, and then there was the West Kingdoms,

and now there's the South.

There's the South Tigris, and maybe we already know what the East is, Eastern Empire or something.

I assume there's a trilogy of Eastern games coming out later.

And the interesting thing about it was that in the opener, I don't usually talk about

games I don't like, but I didn't really like this one.

But I still was happy to play it, and, you know, you know the reason, you probably have

the same experience yourself, is that one of my friends brought it over, and he was

really eager to try it.

He'd even suggested another night, and we weren't quite ready to do it.

So, for sure, I want to do it for him, and to be honest, I'm kind of curious about it,

too.

It's still a new game I'm still interested in.

So we played it, and I kind of liked it, kind of didn't the first time, and we played it

a second time, and a similar kind of reaction, and the more notable thing there was maybe

everyone, including the game owners, thought, like, okay, maybe we're done with this one.

So it's, and meanwhile, I know the people who like this kind of game really like this

kind of game.

So what is it exactly?

Well, it is a...

It's a worker placement game, I would say, primarily.

It is, everyone has their own kind of unique tableau of cards, of different types of cards,

and there is also sort of a progress track, which is the closest thing there is to a shared

board.

There's a shared board in the middle, which marks your progress towards the game end,

and you have to have certain things in your tableau to achieve the next step along the

progress track, which has some forks along the way, and some other sort of benefits,

along the way.

And cards are, there's like four different types of cards, and they are laid out sort

of around the perimeter of that central display, so they are both additional places that you

can put workers, or they trigger actions, and or they trigger actions, and sometimes

you grab those things, and you put them in your personal display, where they have slightly

different game effects.

So as you might be able to tell from that description...

For me, it feels like there's just too much going on.

There's just way too much going on, not for my poor brain to handle, for me to actually

have fun with.

I think it's probably largely a matter of personal taste, but I think there are a lot

of games I see these days, and I feel like I can see it from their table presence.

And they often have a lot of cards, they often have individual player displays of one form

or another, players are kind of head down working on the other thing.

The interaction with other players is pretty indirect.

They're not always worker placement, they're not always tableau building, but those are

some common features in some of these things.

And I just think it's way too much.

It's a style of game I don't really appreciate, and it's a style of game that's really quite

popular.

In fact, I think when a lot of people say Euros today, especially when they say like

that, a Euro game, like a good, meaty Euro game, this is the kind of game they're talking

about.

Which is why I keep kind of going back to the reference to OG, original German, or German

style games, or 1990s games, or elegant games, because all of this sort of stuff is a thing

where it's like the process seems to be a significant part of the enjoyment.

Now I will say about Wayfarers of the South Tigris, I did really enjoy some parts of the

theme.

Like I was, I, this is, it doesn't expressly say it's in Baghdad, but you know, you know

that part of the world, that's just kind of what it's about.

And I was just thrilled to see astronomy as a significant part of the game.

It's one of the four types of cards, it's one of the ways you get points, and it has

something to do with some of the actions that you do.

And I'm not saying that just because I'm a space geek, and I, you know, and that's the,

I work in that business, I'm saying that as a history geek.

Because if you know anything about, you know, world history in this part of the world at

that time, it's like this leading astronomers in the world were in Baghdad and that part

of the world.

So to see it reflected so centrally in the game, I thought was really neat.

I mean, some of the rest of it is a little more conventional, I think, a little, you

know, that could apply to a lot of things.

There's workers or people, and there's, you know, locations, and anyway, and a certain

amount of resources.

But the astronomy thing I was very tickled with, and even though Wayfarers of the South

is probably done for me, I'll put an asterisk on that because I even said when I posted

the guy who was on the show last month, Tim Doloff, this is his kind of game.

You know, he's into those kind of Euros.

Lots of people are into those kind of Euros, just not me so much.

But I did acknowledge that, oh, if this were available online somewhere, and I don't think

it's on BGA or anything right now, but, you know, it does seem like the sort of game that

could wind up there, I would actually probably, well, I would definitely play it, and I would

probably enjoy it probably quite a lot.

I mean, it would have, it would fall into that same category of games like Through the

Ages, and there's some others like that where, even Underwater Cities to an extent, which

I, you know, I also don't like.

But I'm happy to play online where the kind of a little bit ponderousness and the information

density and all that sort of stuff, or the tiny print across the board that, you know,

are you really supposed to be watching what other players have because it's pretty impossible

to see in real life.

Some of those things get fixed when you play online, and so this is a, you know, and there

definitely is some strategic depth to it, for sure, and different pathways you can choose.

So I would be interested in trying this thing a little bit more if it's available online,

but on the tabletop, I think I'm done with this one.

Okay, so let's get into the actual main event of this podcast episode, which is the interview

with my buddies Dave Arnott and Mike Mayer, and you've heard them both on the podcast,

but it's been a little while before.

So here they are.

Dave, do you know how many times you've been on this podcast?

I don't, but I want to thank you in advance for the economy of putting Mike and I together

on this, because this gives each of us a chance in one episode to get one up on Dave Bow,

and that's really all that matters.

That's good.

And what about you, Mike?

I'm trying to remember.

I mean, I know you were on one of my earlier episodes a long time, but haven't you been

on since then?

Yeah, I've been one with Dave Bow, actually.

Okay.

I think my goal is to be once every decade is my goal, so I get every decade in for the

board game.

Well, that's a good approach.

The other one you could consider is if you've been with Dave Arnott and Dave Bow, you haven't

been with Dave O'Connor probably yet.

No, I don't believe so.

Yeah, when's the All Dave's episode?

And that's not the only Dave I've had on this podcast before, too.

That is true.

We could have an All Dave episode for some special month, some month starting in D, I

guess.

December.

Oh.

You mean Davecember.

Davecember.

All right, we'll put that in the idea file.

But I've got you guys on to talk about online game groups, even though we call it group,

because I know you guys have one.

I've dabbled in it a little bit myself, but it's really you two are the focus here, and

it's both online, and it's both mostly two-player.

I think we're going to talk about all that stuff.

So let me start with Mike.

Why don't you describe what this game group is?

Well, it's more of just a, it kind of just fell together.

We're just two guys playing games online.

I live on the East Coast.

Dave's on the West Coast.

We used to live in the same place, but now we're far apart, and we just kind of play

games online at night, once a week, and that's about all there is to it.

And when did you start this?

So it was before you moved, right, Mike?

Yeah.

When you were in Texas, because I genuinely don't remember when we started.

As far as I can tell, looking back at emails and the game logs, I think it was late or

mid-2021, and we were playing on BSW, and I don't know if it was just you and me, or

you were trying to get Mark also together for games, and maybe somebody else?

Yeah, maybe.

Again, I don't really remember, but yes, we definitely started on Brett Spielwelt, because

I looked on BGA.

Earlier, for some research, and my account shows that I set it up there in 2012, except

that I remember I set up my account on BGA, and then I don't think I used it for like

eight or nine years, so I don't really know when I was active there.

There's probably some way to search and find that information, and I just didn't dive too

deep into it, but...

Yeah, like some of the best things, we don't remember how it began, but it's become a thing.

But, okay, but 21.

21 is notable for being during the pandemic, so you already mentioned that you guys used

to live in the same, you know, same as me, right here in Southern California, but Mike,

you moved away, first to Texas, but you didn't start this up because you moved, to stay in

contact directly like that.

I mean, I don't remember what year you moved.

It was even pre-pandemic, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was 1918, 2018.

2018, oh yeah, so you'd been away for several years, and Board Game Arena and Brett Spielwelt

existed back then.

Something happened in 2021.

Is that not, you know, pandemic?

No, I'm sure it is a pandemic.

So, I can tell you from my side, my online gaming was almost exclusively at Brett Spielwelt

for the longest time, despite my 2012 account origins at BGA, but I think, for me, the pandemic

and mostly spending the first seven months of the pandemic at my parents and not...

here in Southern California, is what finally got me onto BGA.

There's no history I couldn't find of, like, when my premium account got started.

Sorry, Mark, I wasn't going to go through, like, my credit card records.

That's okay, that's okay.

But once I dove into BGA, right, that's...

I have friends there, like, I mean, with the exception of Anthony Rubo, and maybe a handful,

a very small handful of other people who are not findable on Brett Spielwelt.

If you're on there, really, as easily.

It's not like I had friends on Brett Spielwelt.

When I went there to play, even though I was playing real people, it was basically solitary

gaming for me.

So...

You're playing randos, as we say.

Yeah.

So, going to BGA, where a lot of my friends already were, I'm sure that that was part

of it as well.

And Mike...

And by the way, I'm still not...

I'm not entirely sure how Mike spends his days, but Mike, I always knew was similar

to me in the sense that he never had what I thought of as a regular job, and that that

made him potentially available to play games at weird hours, you know, if possible.

So, even though we never did it that way, and I don't even know why...

Do you remember why we said on Thursdays, Mike?

I...

I was trying to remember.

I know we were just kind of catching each other online by luck, or just a text, hey,

are you on a play?

And then somewhere along the line, we decided, hey, let's just meet up on Thursday.

Maybe it was Wednesday.

It's probably the best day.

We do sometimes play on a Wednesday, and it's definitely not every Thursday.

I mean, there's plenty of Thursdays where I think probably 80% of the time it's on my

end, where I'm backing out on you than the other way around.

Yeah, which is fine for me.

That's one of the advantages of online gaming, is if you back up, it's like, well, all right,

I'll just do what I was going to do anyway for the evening.

I didn't set up the house.

I didn't buy snacks.

Right.

It was just a bonus if I get to play.

I can't remember if it started just the two of us.

I feel like, Mark, I probably invited you.

I see invitations with Mark.

We were trying to do...

What's...

A game that Mark likes, a muterer.

A murderer.

I saw an early email with that, with us trying to get a group together to do that.

Well, what I remember during the pandemic, too, was so many people, either they'd never

done online board gaming before, or they just dabbled in it, and then for obvious reasons,

they got way more into it.

And there were various overlapping circles of friends.

So I'd be invited to some games with some people, different games with other people.

Like you, I would still...

You know, just pop online and play against randos sometimes.

So...

But, you know, however we were thinking it started, it didn't seem like it'd take too

long, or at least certainly you guys have been meeting for like three years, primarily

as an anchored by just the two of you.

It's been mostly a two-person game group.

Yes.

With bi-coastal friends who occasionally have another one join, right?

Yes.

And the fact that you've got some flexibility means the fact that you're in multiple time

zones.

You're three hours apart.

It used to be, what?

Two hours apart.

That's not insurmountable, but it's a little bit of a challenge, right?

Well, it works out great for me, right?

Because we're starting usually like at five o'clock my time, which is perfect for me.

So, you know, especially when I'm up at my parents, because, you know, I play games with

Mike from like 5 to 6.30.

It's not even...

We sometimes only go like 90 minutes.

That's usually what we schedule.

And that usually...

That will often go to two hours.

But usually it's like 5 to 6.30 or 5 to 7.

And then not only am I done, but then I can like have dinner with my mom.

Like it's not like a game night, right?

Yeah.

It's the exact opposite for me in a way.

It's a game night for Mike.

Yeah.

And then I can go watch TV.

But it's more of a problem for getting other people to join, I think, because they work

at that time or have other things going on.

Cool disclosure.

Peter Mark has occasionally joined us from the back of his van pool, like riding home

from work.

Well, that's right.

Because I always would like to join you.

It's just that 5 p.m. Pacific is not a convenient time for me.

Those are fun sometimes because often when you join from the van pool, you can't get

on to the Discord channel with us.

So just to set it up, we are absolutely doing a voice chat on Discord.

While we are playing.

Although BGA's voice chat is pretty great, it's just that it's only on a game-by-game

basis.

And when you close the game, it disappears.

Right.

Not as good for a session, right?

Right.

We don't do video chat.

I think we did video maybe a couple of times in the beginning and it was just like, we'll

never look at this.

We're just watching the game anyway.

I know what you look like.

You know what I look like.

Yeah.

All right.

So did this, you know, when you've been doing this, is this replaced?

Or?

Or complemented a regular, what people would call traditional, maybe in-person game group?

For the longest time for me, it did.

Because I was moving around and then the pandemic and then it was just hard to get another group.

And, but I mean, it's, this is not something I would use to meet new people with.

Yeah.

I do it because I like Dave and I'm playing with Dave.

And so now I have another group where, you know, in real life where I can meet strangers.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, I have said multiple times, I think on this podcast that, you know, my, I gave

up my regular games group.

God, it's probably like 12 years ago now, or I don't even know when.

And so I don't really have a regular games group in the sense that it, of a weekly one,

right?

I, I, I shoot game night episodes, which is playing games.

That is sort of a games group for me, essentially.

And we do those five SoCal games days.

And then like, occasionally there'll be something over at Steph's for like the weekend.

She'll usually do, cause you know, we don't go to the cons anymore.

So like, there'll usually be something set up for like Labor Day weekend or Memorial Day weekend,

but I don't have a regular games group.

Mike is my regular games group in the, in that sense.

That is true.

I actually think my, my other group is just who I meet at the game store who I don't really know.

And so, and so I'm, I'm really glad that I'm in the game store.

I'm really glad that this is working out for me, Mike, not frequency.

Like, do you see the game store people once a week?

Well, this is just a very recent occasion.

They play once a week, but I don't go once a week.

So you're right.

I, I play, this is actually would be, I guess, consider my, my regular thing.

And to get sort of more into it, I think one of the things it's not just a games group.

There is a very specific sort of bent to what we do.

Which is that we will often play beta games that show up on BGA.

And so, and BGA, by the way, in the last like year or two, the beta games have just exploded.

Although every once in a while, there'll be like three new beta games.

And they're just like traditional, you know, 52 card deck card games that they've just added to the site.

But,

so with the exception of sort of some old friends, like Mike and I will play Pandemic every once in a while.

And then we'll get into our closer later, but but we often play, we're often playing new games to both of us, at least one every week or every Thursday when we meet because, and, and there is no set, like you read the rules or I'll read the rules.

Mike is just.

Yeah.

Looking at beta games, the newest stuff.

And sometimes I'll look at beta games on a Wednesday and then an hour before we're about to play on Thursday, I'll just go back to where the beta games were.

And there'll be like five new ones.

That's kind of a little sub, sub hobby within itself, I think, because I, you know, I made that joke about all the days before Dave O'Connor during the pandemic.

I, he was trying and no one can keep up with this anymore, but he was trying to play every game that BGA had.

Okay.

And it was.

Right when it was hitting that power curve of adding games left and right in the start of the pandemic, he was actually keeping up on a weekly basis.

It was absolutely, you know, uh, related to the availability people had to go online during the pandemic, but then it just outstripped him.

And I guess it's, it's, it hasn't slowed down one bit since then.

I do pretty good.

I mean, there are games we look at and we both know that we're not going to be interested in.

And so we just get those.

And well, the thing that makes me the happiest is when I see a new roll on, right.

Because I know even me, we'll both go, Oh, a new role, rolling.

Yeah.

Well, partly because we like those kinds of games, but also because those, the online implementation of those kinds of games are often better than the, than the actual real game itself.

Yes.

Why is that?

Um, mostly for visuals, a lot of rolling rights, the stuff you're doing is this little teeny thing in front of you at the table.

And, uh, oftentimes you kind of.

Need to see what your opponent might be doing or not doing.

And that's hard to do sometimes at the table.

A lot of it just depends on the rolling right.

Itself.

Um, you know, uh, quicks, for example, I think is a good example that even though those sheets are really tiny, I think that works at the table.

The information is not hard to see from across the table as to kind of what people are doing or how far they're going down in red or blue or one of those things.

But.

Like Ganshawn clever, for example.

Which I love online, especially because, I mean, I will online, you can absolutely like hate draft in that game and you can absolutely like reroll a dive that you don't need just to make sure if someone else doesn't get it.

And I don't know that that happens at the table as much because it's, it's really hard to see like what your opponents are doing in the, in, uh, in that sort of thing.

Yeah.

It's kind of a different topic.

I haven't figured out.

How to get my arms around it.

Someday I'll do a podcast about it, but I, I think there these days, especially our games, and I guess you could still call them board games, but the, but the point is games that absolutely work better, uh, digitally, even though they ostensibly have board game roots, um, not just things like that.

It's like, like through the ages, another example at the other extreme where it's like really big involved turns that you might want it to go like 90% of the way through and then undo everything and try another alternative.

You know, that's.

It sucks across the table, but there's like a whole nother kind of game that, you know, or, or platform where it works great.

Well, especially for you, because more than me, because I'm, I'm never playing asynchronous, like, you know, make your move when you're ready to make your move games, all the online games I'm playing for the most part are live.

So, so part of the advantage of an online game is you can play it asynchronous and have all the time you need and not waste everybody else's time at the table.

And then obviously anything that has a lot of bookkeeping, it's just more fun when the bookkeeping is done for you.

Right.

And I know there's other games where if you play it in, even in live, and if you play it in person, it's a chore to be able to see all the possibilities, whereas online, sometimes they get highlighted for you.

It's like, or you hover over with your mouse and it shows all the possibilities as a what to do on your turn.

Well, that brings us back to what Mike said at the beginning, which was, I think probably one of the reasons I was trying to get you and him.

To play Moitreur on Brett Spielwelt is that I've always felt that one of the reasons that more people don't like that game is that it's, it's, it's kind of hard to grok in general, but it's, it's harder in person in a weird way.

And then there's also just an enormous amount of shuffling in that game and sort of card dealing management and the online version just deals with it all.

Yeah.

Okay.

You mentioned Brett Spielwelt there again, and you mentioned that a couple of times.

Obviously, Board Game Arena is your, is your, I don't know, what do you say, 90% more platform that you use?

Sure.

Do you still do Brett Spielwelt once in a while or not at all?

Well, Mike and I have a closer.

We almost invariably end every session over in Brett Spielwelt in which-

I know what this is.

It's Troop and Fever.

Troop and Fever.

We may be the two greatest fans of this game.

It's the greatest game in the world.

Oh my gosh.

Based on what everybody else's reaction.

Has an unfair bad reputation.

I guess.

Now, to be fair, this game has, well, it's online.

Probably Brett Spielwelt is the only place that has it, but it's, it's by a big name designer, right?

Who's the designer?

It's Yuba Rosenberg.

Oh yeah.

I've heard of him.

Right.

Okay.

So is this anything like a Feast for Odin?

What's this game like?

Well, it's a, it's a variant.

No.

It is like the lightest.

Like luckiest dice festiest game.

And yet I, I, maybe you can say it better than me, Mike.

I mean, there's just something great about it.

You can play the probabilities.

I like that at a point you can actually pay the risks when you're behind and they can pay off.

You can make decisions that seem like actual decisions, even though they're very light.

What I like best though, is I played Dave enough that I know what.

He's going to think if I choose something that I don't think he would choose as a strategy

and just to hear his reaction.

And then if it pays off for me, that's, that's, that's amazing.

Oh, okay.

I know.

I think I've played that game with you guys like once or twice.

Yeah.

And I think I had the more general reaction to that game, which is.

You loved it, right?

No, I did not love it.

It was, I mean, it was, it was harmless fun, but I'm glad you guys are getting.

Yeah.

Way more out of it than anyone else on the planet is.

I will say this.

I don't know what it was about the game that got me immediately because it, it, it definitely

does not impress people the first time they play it.

And I understand, and I completely understand that.

Like if you play that game one or two times and you're like, Hmm, I can't fault you for

that feeling.

There's, you almost have to play it more.

Except how would I ever inspire you to do that?

If the first few plays.

Like, did I catch you?

The other thing I actually think that's cool about the game is it, it has enough dice rolls

in it such that even if you start off with like the worst possible luck or the best possible

luck that can absolutely just turn in the middle of the game.

And it's just so cool to see when it happens.

Yeah.

Well, there are some dice games where if you get, if you get some lucky rolls in the very

beginning of your opponent.

It doesn't, the game is over and you're just, it's just a procession.

This game is not that.

Yeah.

And it's like I said, I play with you.

So it's not exclusively a two player game.

Do you think it's best with two?

Uh, it matters because the, the other thing that I could see being a knock against the

game is there's no real player interaction.

I mean, Mike sort of said it, the, the player interaction we have happens over the discord

server, right?

It has, has nothing to do with the game.

Um, uh, it, it is truly like, I'm just going to do my thing and you're going to watch me

do my thing and vice versa.

But, um, I don't know, it's sort of, it's not, it's not quite at the level of can't

stop, but it has some can't stop to it because a lot of can't stop is just rooting against

somebody or just watching them sort of risk their turn.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

So have you, either of you had a chance to play it in person or even see it?

Oh, my first plays of it were, I, no, that's not true.

Yes.

Um, before the game came out, so I think it showed up on Bridge People at first and I

immediately, I immediately took an image of the board on Bridge People and then printed

it out.

And then I took it over to Lincoln and Nikki because you just need seven dice.

Right, six-sided dice.

Yeah.

And we played it there and I knew they were going to like it and they did like it.

And I think we eventually did that as an episode of Game Night, but it took a while for that

game to get to the States.

Sometimes, that's the other thing about BSW, um, is that games will often show up there

first because it's still, it's still a German board game site.

I have no idea if it's, I'm making air quotes here, the premier German board game site,

but, um, but as far as I know, it is.

So.

Do you play on any other sites?

Like even Yukata anymore?

I don't know.

Every once in a while, we maybe did some stuff there.

We tried something a couple of times.

It's just that BGA has a nice way of refreshing on the screen.

Right.

You guys play live.

And so Bridge People only plays that way and BGA has a mode that works great.

I know we played Mountain Goats there, but then of course Mountain Goats like a month

or two ago finally got to BGA.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Um, now you kind of.

You mentioned before that you're, you make it sound like you're playing all, other than

this infamous closer, like you, um, you play new games like left and right all the time.

Is that, is that accurate?

Yeah.

Well, we'll play a lot of new games and, um, they'll stick around for maybe just once,

maybe up to five times.

I remember we played Regicide for like 10 times and haven't gone back to it, but there

will be games we play and then just move on to the next one.

Yeah.

Um, now.

Mike, I, I still play Regicide with Randos.

So, I mean, I really like that game, but, um, but I think because I play it with Randos,

I don't ever bring it up again with you.

I would say 50 to 65% of the games we play are new games to us.

Yeah.

Oh, 50 to 60%.

That's lower than I expected.

And I'll change it.

75%.

Well, I guess like in your readership.

Regicide example, or if you play it a few weeks in a row, it's not new to you anymore,

but it's still, it's, it's semi new.

My point really is you guys have both been playing the hobby as long as I have, you know,

over 20, 30 years, a long time.

And you have lots of old favorites.

You know, Dave, you've talked about Lost Cities is one of your all-time favorites.

That's available online.

How come you don't, or do you, do you play old favorites like that?

No, again, not with Mike.

So Lost Cities is similar to Regicide, right?

When I want to play Lost Cities,

I just play with a rando because it's not hard to get that going at any given time on BGA.

So that, that's part of it.

Like the games that I don't play with randos that I will repeat with Mike is we'll probably play over any given year.

We'll probably play maybe like seven to 12 games of Pandemic.

Yeah.

Because we like that two player.

So yeah, that's the one I always want to play with you guys.

It never works out.

Well, that's the one we often play with you, right?

Okay.

Let me know you like it.

Yeah.

I guess a lot of the old favorites, that's why I brought up Lost Cities.

A lot of the old favorites that you might say aren't, that you would have always played together at games days or whenever, wherever in person.

They usually wouldn't be two player games, right?

Or.

Maybe not best with two players.

No, but you bring up an interesting point, right?

Which is I have bookmarked, like, I don't know, maybe I'll never play Dog Park, but I bookmarked Dog Park, like maybe four months ago, five months ago.

And I bookmarked it for an interesting reason, which was that my friend Bob Claster occasionally will buy a game.

Now he doesn't have like a game.

His games group is usually like me and Ken.

And maybe someone else and otherwise.

But he also has a dog.

So he was intrigued in Dog Park.

And I'm like, oh, let's look at this.

Now, Mike and I have not played Dog Park because it has like special weird wonky, I think, two player rules that I'm not interested in trying.

Because I want to know how the game actually really works.

And that's, so there are some games that Mike and I don't play, even though I'm interested or even Mike is interested in them.

Because either.

Either the two player rules look weird and not representative of the game, or it doesn't have two player rules at all.

And you need three players.

Right.

So that it might exclude certain games, but there's no shortage of the library of possibilities for two player night game night online.

No, no.

Except I keep waiting for shot and Totten to be put up.

Oh, gosh.

Wait, that is.

Oh, that got pulled down in the great Canizia removal of.

Yeah.

A decade ago.

Right.

Yeah.

That used to be somewhere.

OK.

All right.

Well, OK.

I mentioned that you guys have been board gaming for a long time and you started this during the pandemic.

That was, you know, but could you have done this hobby five, 10 or 20 years ago?

I mean, one thing, I mean, 20 years ago might sound like an eternity, but I mean, I've been doing this.

I'm on year 20 of this podcast.

So, I mean, and I've known you guys longer than that.

So it's been around and I was amazed to see episode three of this podcast, 2005, 19 years ago.

I was talking about not quite the same thing, but it was Playboy.

Web games, which included Yukata and Spiel by Web and other things.

Talk about Brett Spielwelt.

So I don't know.

I guess we didn't have Discord back then, but maybe we had Skype.

Could you guys have done this all those years ago?

Sure.

I mean, I can't quite remember, but I seem to remember Brett Spielwelt showed up.

I want to say 2001.

I mean, it was early.

Yeah.

And in that regard.

And it was, you know, it was no English and it was all German and you just had to deal with it.

But.

But I found that mostly because they had TeachU there and that was like my main way to play TeachU for a while.

Sure, we could, because there's always the phone, Mark.

I know.

In fact, Dave, didn't you in those old days, like Rubo or something, you guys would be on the phone?

Anthony Rubo and I over the phone once played Africa.

And with no, by the way, with no online interface, we just played Africa over the phone.

I set the board up at my house.

He set the board up at his house.

And I think I had the master board.

So my board had all the tokens on it.

And his board had cubes in every space.

He had three different.

He had.

Yeah, he had a cube in every space.

And then when I flipped over a tile, he would take that cube off, find the tile from his set and put it there.

Well.

So that's the stone ages of doing it.

Yeah.

But it still worked, right?

Like.

Yeah, the technology makes it easier.

And it's also now on the ether that this is something you can do.

And it's nice.

You can you can see when your friends are online easily.

And yeah, you can.

The discord is easy to set up a voice thing without having to deal with settings and stuff.

And listen, not to be pedantic.

But, you know, 20 years ago, Mike was here.

So I wouldn't.

Well, there's that.

Right.

OK, Mike, am I right?

Remember, don't you sometimes play like online role playing games, too, in a similar kind of way?

I used to.

And that that was over the pandemic because also I moved away.

And yeah.

And that was that also helped me just, you know, get into the idea of let's just play games online.

Yeah.

And.

And that kind of filled a void.

And now it's just it's one of the little happinesses that you get to play.

OK, well, but you're not doing that anymore now.

Not really.

No, I haven't done that for a while.

OK, well, I don't want to go maybe too far down this rabbit hole, but I'm curious, you know, when you do that, I assume you still use discord just to talk to everyone in the game group, right?

That one.

Well, we used Roll20 and it had its own client.

Oh, voice.

And it had a little picture on the actual.

A dungeon screen that you can keep track of.

So that was.

Oh, OK.

Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Yeah.

But it was kind of buggy.

OK, so that technology wasn't quite there yet.

But OK.

All right.

So, well, you already joked about.

Well, when we talk about technology and offers this flexibility, you guys joked about me sitting in the backseat of the van pool with a mobile device connecting.

And Dave, you mentioned you get to connect from your folks place.

Yeah.

Hundreds of miles away from your home.

Do Mike, how about you?

Have you ever connected from any place other than your home?

I have not.

I haven't had the need, I don't think.

Yeah.

And when I've gone on vacation to visit my parents, it hasn't really been that long enough to where I skip the day.

I haven't actually done it.

There's no reason why.

Also, if you're if you're on a vacation, like with your parents, you probably don't have time for a game night, potentially.

Right.

You're doing.

Yeah.

Usually.

Oh, my trips up north with my mom are are are different.

Like, it's not like we don't do stuff, me and my mom.

But we spend a lot of time sort of just doing nothing.

Like, I'm I'm mostly she gives me like an enormous amount of space and vice versa.

And it's really more of a sense of just partly why I'm up there just to deal with things and other things.

And I don't know that I've ever connected with you, Mike, from somewhere else.

I have a Friday night.

I have a Zoom meeting with like my old college friends that started during the pandemic.

And we've been going for four years now, which is crazy.

I have connected to that from other places.

I connected to them when I was in Europe last year just to do it.

But, you know, but that's just a that's just a Zoom meeting.

Right.

Yeah.

So that's just easy for me to do on a phone or a tablet.

And I don't have to worry about seeing moves or whatever.

But I also.

So my other regular online games group, because I have a second one, is with some people locally here.

But with Chia and Greg, who live back east, and we play D.Crew, which for whatever reason, I can't call the crew.

And and I play D.Crew with those guys.

Well, also, when I was in Europe last year on my roller coaster trip, because the time.

The time difference just worked out perfectly for me.

And and that's and I played without voice chat.

Right.

So I was just I was just playing cards.

I was the silent one.

And it was kind of cool.

Well, you've you've name dropped a few titles as we've gone.

Let me think, like Tulip and Fever and Regicide and Pandemic.

And you also said that you mostly play a lot of new games.

But from, you know, you've been doing this, you said, since 21.

Where are we now?

Middle of 24.

You've been doing this for three years.

You meet most most weeks of the year, it sounds like.

So you played a lot.

Are there other, you know, whether it's favorites that you've played multiple times or just individual titles that for whatever reason had a memorable experience or any other titles you want to call out as saying that was really cool or this is one of our favorites?

I enjoyed we played Tranquility Descent.

And what I enjoyed, it's a cooperative game.

But you keep on adding.

New challenges to it.

And we just kept on doing the next challenge.

And I kind of I like that kind of progression of having a new game and then adding things to it.

We've done that with several other games, too, where they have, you know, like a little campaign sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's funny.

I was thinking about this.

We are Mike, whether we want to admit it or not, because I don't feel like I'm this way in my regular gaming world.

But.

In this little bubble I'm in with you, we are kind of cult of the new like.

Yes, you are.

Absolutely.

You guys are.

We are.

Well, I was trying to think of some new game we played a long time ago that we still play.

And I can't think of one.

We we will play something.

I'm not saying we don't we don't like a game and we'll play it.

The games we like, we might play like five or six or seven times.

But and I will also freely admit that that's probably 80 percent, maybe 90 percent.

On me more so than Mike.

I think I think Mike would be more happy than I would to just keep going back to the stuff we learned.

But I don't think we've I don't think anything other than other than Tulip and Fever and Castles.

I don't think anything is around.

No, I mean, we sometimes we'll go back to Notre Dame.

But I mean, that's once in a long while.

We didn't learn Notre Dame like that was a game we already knew.

We knew that.

A long time ago.

Like I was thinking, we learned we played Applejack a bunch of times.

Oh, yeah.

Maybe like maybe like five or six times.

But then we never came back to it.

And and why I believe that's more on me than Mike is that I tend to, especially if I play a game with Mike and I really like it.

I tend to then play it during the other days of the week with randos.

And sometimes that will then.

Scratch that itch for me.

And sometimes that will get me to the point where I will like, oh, I'm played out on this now.

You burn hot on it for a while.

I burn hot without Mike involved.

Like, so I don't know if that's either unfair to him or if I'm doing him a service.

What I like about the games we play, if I'm playing a game in person and I learn the rules, I want to get it down cold and I want to make sure I know everything.

Yeah, I'm playing with Dave online.

I watch a video.

Maybe a week before and have half memory of explaining it to him.

And I know Dave knows enough about games that he's going to just pick up on.

What's going on?

And at some point, well, let's just play.

I like the shorthand we've developed on new games, basically.

Oh, yeah, it's it's very loosey goosey.

And we will often because of that, we will often play something like twice in a row, right?

We'll play something.

OK, let's do that again for the technology.

You know, the site.

Keeping track of the rules that we don't really know.

That's a very important point, actually, Mike, which is I think part of the reason that I also tend to favor learning new games online is that the online implementation essentially prevents you from learning the games incorrectly.

Right.

As long as the rules are programmed correctly into the game, you can't mess them up.

Right.

In fact, I've heard stories.

I think I've done this myself.

Even where you play a game.

You come online and you think like, oh, I was playing that wrong.

Apparently, you learn something sometimes.

But like I'm I just pulled up my spreadsheet from last year and Mike, we played the most sort of new played games for us.

We played six games of Applejack.

We played six games of Discordia, which I don't.

I don't even remember what that is anymore.

That was on BSW.

I was trying to actually remember the name of that game.

Yeah.

OK.

We played four or five games of Heat Pell to the Metal.

But we played 60 games of Tulpin Fever.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

All right.

So as long as you're looking at some stats or maybe you can rely on your memory just from, you know, the past.

Month or two.

What are some games you've played a bunch or ones that somehow stand out in any way?

Mike, you go while I.

I just joined you last week to watch mostly.

And you played some.

Played.

I remember.

Right.

Well, right.

That's what I joined you with.

But but but you were learning something else new with putting villagers, drafting villagers and putting them in a castle combo.

OK.

We'll play that again.

Yeah.

There are so many games that it is sort of like.

I mean, this isn't a bad thing, but you play once and then it's gone.

Well, that's what I mean that they're kind of disposable.

Right.

Yeah.

And the fact that no one actually went out and bought the game, you just logged into the Web site and played it.

I guess that's it makes it easier to dispose of it.

Absolutely.

One hundred percent.

Because you don't feel like, well, hey, I spent, you know.

I spent thirty dollars on this on this box that I'm bringing to your house.

Like, so can we open it and maybe, you know, play it?

Right.

We've played expressions a couple of times.

I remember.

And again with you.

Yeah.

And that seems like a fun little game.

But it's not a game I'm going to go out and buy.

No.

Well, and there's a game that, for example, I don't think we did play it.

Two player expressions that has two player rules, but they're just not right.

Right.

So we played a game called Master of the Renaissance, which this is a this is a good thing where we play several times and then realize maybe there's a element to the game that we don't really like that we liked the beginning.

And so we're glad we didn't buy it, I guess.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Sure.

Master of the Renaissance colon Lorenzo Magnifico.

But it was fun for the three or four times we played.

We played it three times and then I played it two more times.

Against Randos, which really made me think, OK, I'm done.

I also think it's fair to say that there are definitely a subset of games that Mike and I play that we might play more if we were playing them with three or four players and not just the two of us.

Yeah.

There are games that absolutely work as two player games in the sense that they don't need special weird rules to be a two player game, but they might not shine at two players.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

For sure.

There seems I would think like a lot of games are that way, but you find a fair number of them work perfectly fine with two.

I think that's partly why we like the rolling rights, right?

Because the rolling rights tend to not scale one way or the other for a number of players, depending on what the interaction is, if there's any.

I'm interested in playing, it just occurred to me, the Chemical Overlord game.

Seems like an interesting one.

Yeah, I want to play it again.

It's a deck builder.

It took us forever, though.

Yeah.

And some of that was us learning it, but that game might just be long, because the time

clock on that game are certain types of cards that need to be purchased, and it is very

possible for players to just not purchase them.

It's not like it moves along.

I mean, I don't know if this was in the original Dominion Rules or if those guys brilliantly

developed it into the game, but the second time clock in that game of just any three

piles running out is great.

Let's wrap up by talking about the future of your little game group here.

You've been doing it for some number of years.

You don't sound like you've got any plans on stopping.

I mean, what do you think will...

Well, our goal was to get onto your podcast, and that's it, so I think we're done.

Yeah, we're done.

Thanks, Mark.

Okay.

No, you're going to keep going, aren't you?

It seems like.

Yeah.

I was going to say, I can't speak on Mike's behalf, but for me, I have to say...

I can't say in the first couple of years, even though we would send out an invite to

you, Mark, every once in a while, or to Jeff Meyer every once in a while, I was more selfish

back then.

I was very happy to just have it be me and Mike.

The ability to very loosely and casually sort of explore new games and not worry about it,

like...

Not worry about getting all the rules as we were playing it, not worrying about, like,

oh, I should have done this or I should have done that, like, that first time, was very

appealing for me.

But we've been doing this now for a while, where I feel like we've been making more of

an effort than normal, maybe, to, like, get a third or a fourth person to join us.

And I think partly because we have almost...

Backlog's not the right word, but it's like...

But it's like, there are, like, again, will I ever play Dog Park?

I don't know.

But I do have, like, I do have these, like, favorited games that I've put on BGA that

just sort of sit in my favorites list, and they're unplayed because they need a third

player, you know?

Well, it's really appealing that you've got this two-player game group, because as you're

describing it, I thought, like, oh, this is what I actually tried to set up with my brother

this year, you know?

Right.

And...

He's not a game...

He's, you know, he'll play any game with me, but he's not a regular gamer like we are.

But he'll play any game.

But honestly, I thought, like, oh, even if we just go and play something that he already

knows and likes, like Cribbage, like Azul, you know, I taught him Daybreak in person,

you know?

And so, I mean, I would be completely content if we just had a stable of, you know, five

to ten games, and that's all we play.

Right.

Kind of the opposite of you guys, anyway, but over and over.

And the point is, check...

Catching in, you know, in this case, my brother, you know, all...

I guess that still counts as a friend, too, you know, on a regular basis.

But, you know, between the two of us, I think especially him, where he sort of...

He is in his life and work and stuff like that, the availability doesn't work out.

So, I'm really envious.

I mean, to have the ability to, like, check in with a buddy all the time...

Let me...

...or regularly like that is really valuable.

It's really a treasure.

Let me further add that I genuinely lucked into...

Mike, because you...

A more casual, easygoing, relaxed, and genuinely good player you are not going to find, and

that's, like, the ideal opponent, in my opinion.

So, there's that, too, Mike.

There.

I hope I embarrassed you.

You did.

And, I mean, I want to point out Dave is one of the most enthusiastic.

After so many games he's played, you'd think that, oh, I'm kind of jaded of all this.

But, when something new comes up that's good, he's like, oh, my God, this is...

Yeah.

I get excited by the little minutiae parts of things and whatever.

I like to see...

I like to see that stuff.

But, I would argue, Mike, that I'm not nearly as nice as you.

I don't know.

I'm sure I have many friends who love me dearly that would agree with that.

That...

Well, I'll say that everyone can agree that Mike's at the top of that list.

So, that...

It's hard to compare yourself to a guy like that.

Well, listen.

Thanks, you guys, for coming on the podcast.

Thanks for letting me crash your party once in a while.

Right.

Yeah.

I realize that now, Dave, as you explained, usually when I crash the party, it's because

the timing doesn't work out great.

You still don't get to try one of those three-player games from your list because I'm like, I'm

here for something short.

I've got 20 minutes.

Let's play something I already know.

So, I'm not...

Except, it's still fun to play Castle of Tuscany.

Yep.

It's still fun to play Castle of Tuscany.

You can play games you know already, and they're just...

You know, we play a lot of two-player games, so just the ability to play a three-player

game every once in a while is just nice for the difference.

I'm glad I bring something to the table, too.

But, yeah, thanks for coming on the podcast, and best of luck on your continued two-person

online game group.

It sounds really cool, and I'm sure we've got a number of envious listeners out there

thinking, I wish I could do that.

So, awesome, you guys.

Look.

Look, if there's nothing else that we haven't proved today, you only need to find one person.

Yep.

Thanks a lot, guys.

We'll see you around.

All right, Mark.

Bye.

Okay.

Thanks to those guys for joining me on the podcast.

I appreciated that.

Hope it was fun to listen to.

And, by the way, if you do anything similar, like have an online game group, whether it's

for two people or more, a regular online game group, I'd love to hear about it.

I think that would be very interesting.

And, you know, wait until the feedback thing at the end of the show, and you'll know where

to post it.

Okay, for the closure this time, I told you at the opener there was a little bit of a

connection, and that's because, if you remember, the opener was Wayfarers of the South Tigris,

and I said how, even though I'm talking about the game, I don't really like it that much.

Now I'm going to be talking about another game, which, incidentally, was also referred

to in the previous episode, and this is Arx.

Kind of the new hotness going on right now, and it has been recommended to me, kind of,

and, you know, now I've played it once, and I'll tell you.

I didn't like it at all.

I really didn't like it at all.

But here's the thing, and here's the reason I want to talk about it a little bit more broadly

than that.

In fact, I'm not even talking about the game, that game itself so much.

I requested this game.

We went over to game night, and it was hosted by one of our other friends, and he had his

games out there, and like always, you know, I brought some games, another guy brought

some games, the host had a whole bunch of games, way more games than we can get to on

any given game night.

I mean, we only got to two games.

Especially since one of them was Arx, and it was quite long.

But, so not only being, you know, a good friend to the game night host who wanted to, you

know, show us that game, I'm very curious about it.

I mean, I know that people are talking about this game, and I want to see what it's like.

And I've mentioned before some other games.

There's actually a lot of games like this where I know it might not be for me, but I

still want to see what it's all about.

And in this case, I'm not going to describe how Arx is.

Arx works, but suffice to say, it was long, and I didn't really enjoy the gameplay kind

of at all.

But here's the thing, you know, other people clearly do.

I mean, it's got some momentum, maybe even a little hype too, but it's probably got some

honest to goodness, you know, people really enjoying it, so good for them.

But I could tell right from the early on, maybe not the rules, but once we got into

the gameplay, that I was like, oh.

Oh, this is this kind of game.

And when I mean this kind of game, I thought about it later, talked with some people on

the Discord server about, to me, this kind of game, Arx for sure, and maybe some of other

Cole Whirly's games.

Cole Whirly is a designer that I have the utmost respect for.

I think he's such a creative guy, and he's such an innovative guy, and he does interesting

topics for sure, and interesting treatments.

I just wish I liked his games more, because none of them really click with me.

And I think part of it is a matter of style.

You know?

I think board games, as any sort of art form, can certainly have different styles, and different

people have different tastes, and this is not mine.

The distinction I think I see is that it reminds me of 1970s and 80s multiplayer hobby games.

So I'm thinking of the old original Dune.

I'm thinking of Francis Tresham games.

I'm thinking of...

Avalon Hill games.

And these are multiplayer contests.

They take multiple hours.

They may or may not have player elimination, but the point is really they have direct player

confrontation with each other.

And the games, I think, rely on a certain amount of player balancing.

It's not that everything gets sanded off and filed down so that everyone's position is

basically equal, and it's just a contest.

It's a contest for who can score the most points.

There can be big swings, whether it's through rolls of the dice or other sort of opportunistic

things, and it's up to the players to see that and kind of pound on a leader and bring

them back down.

There's lots of games that have that history.

And I just don't like that at all.

In fact, I thought the advent of what we've called German games in the mid-90s, although

really, Sid Saxon's games are predecessors to this, even in this country.

But anyway, I think...

I think the style of the German games was notably different than that.

It did, maybe to some folks' detriment, make players quite symmetric, and it limited player

interaction, and it was largely a semi-bloodless contest to have the most points by out-competing

each other.

Not to say there isn't direct interaction.

I mean, whether it's...

You know, blocking people in Settlers of Catan or really screwing someone over in a merger

and acquire, I mean, there's lots of that direct interaction, but it's not the same

as direct combat-type interaction when my spaceships are trying to blow up your spaceships.

And the games were, at least at that time, notably shorter.

I mean, like, really notably shorter.

And so I think there was a complete shift in style.

Back then, and I think maybe Cole Whirly's games are a throwback to that earlier style,

which certainly has its fans, but I was very eager when the hobby went in a different direction.

So I'm still kind of interested in exploring and seeing what they are, and I'm seeing...

You know, it would be interesting to see if people push back on this opinion.

But, you know, I played John Company at Dice Tower West, and that was a game that I also

requested and really wanted to see and was way interested in.

In that case, in history as well.

But once we got into it, and it has very different mechanics from ARX, but I mean,

it definitely has that sort of multiplayers, everyone has to keep each other in check.

In fact, much more recent game, Time of Crisis.

Some people like Time of Crisis.

I don't like Time of Crisis either.

That's not a Cole Whirly game at all.

That's, to me, another sort of, even though it's published probably in 2022 or something,

that is a throwback to the 1980s, if not earlier.

And yet there are still some games in that category that I'm going to,

I've never yet played Diplomacy.

I've never yet played Republic of Rome.

Those games are probably one-timers for me.

And I might play it, and I might get partway into it and think like,

oh yeah, that's what this is.

I knew it, and I'll do my best to smile and hopefully not be a party pooper

and ruin the experience for everyone.

And I sure hope, I don't think our Game Night host, Justin, listens to this podcast,

but if he does, I hope he knows that I actually, even though I didn't like the game,

I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed Game Night, and I was happy to request his game,

and I was super happy that he taught it to us and showed it to us.

It's just not for me, and I hope I didn't bring the experience down for anyone.

I was trying hard not to, even while I was having my own experience with the game.

So that's my experience with ARX, and I'm done with that one now.

Okay, if you want to send feedback to the show, I can get it all the usual ways.

Discord is the best.

I'm also on Blue Sky.

You can also email.

You can email at BoardGamesToGo at gmail.com.

Wherever you see this thing posted on BGG, actually, if you just go to BoardGamesToGo.com,

it will redirect you right to where you need to go, and you can post a comment there, too.

Any of these ways will get back to me, and I can share it with Dave and Mike, too.

All right?

Well, once again, I'm Mark Johnson, and thanks for listening to Board Games To Go.

I'll see you next time.

Bye.