Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Top of the Stack, October 2023

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Top of the Stack, October 2023 · Pick Up and Deliver

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  Welcome to pick up and Deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder
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  as I step off the train and deliver an episode two while I walk home.
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  I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's a lovely
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  day here in suburban Chicago. I'm on my way home from the train and
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  it is eighty degrees at the beginning of October. That's not the way it's
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  supposed to be, but it is. So if I sound extra hot,
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  it's not because I'm extra good looking. It's because the weather is swinging up.
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  Although by the end of the week it's supposed to be in the thirty
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  or the fifties. I think are the forties, so I guess enjoy a
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  wall it lasts anyhow. It is October two, the first day I had
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  a chance to record a podcast since the month turnover, which means there's time
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  for our monthly Top of the Stack. For those of you new to the
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  podcast, Top of the Stack is a monthly segment in which I talk about
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  what games I played in the last month, talk about games the games I
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  want to play in the next month, and go over the variety of different
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  ways I track what I'm doing in my game playing, and how I am
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  progressing on various challenges I've given myself. I will say September was a fine
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  month for gaming, but not a great month for meeting these challenges. So
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  we'll see how I did all right, So some final We'll start with monthly
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  fats. I played seventy three plays of forty three different games, for a
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  total of seven hundred and fifty eight plays of two hundred and fifty nine games
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  this year. My shelf of opportunity went up this month from sixty one to
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  sixty five games. It's because I picked up a few games and got hardly
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  any of them knocked off the list. My collection size actually went down from
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  five to seventy two to five seventy one. So I picked up some games,
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  added new games to my shelf of opportunity, but I also did get
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  rid of some games so to keep my collection size relatively small. My most
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  played game on the table was Arkham Horror, the card game, with three
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  plays. My most played game online was Obsession with six ended up playing Obsession
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  six times. Because I have one friend, Eric, Hi Eric, I
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  don't think he listens, but just the case who's been interested in lately,
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  so we've been playing it a lot, and then one of my other groups
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  that I play with also drifted into it, so I had two plays or
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  two different groups playing it or a couple times each. For my top of
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  the stack, I had four games chosen. As always, I'm my goal,
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  I considered a successful month if I played three of the four. The
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  four games I chose were Vagrant Song, Terraforming, Mars, Hunted, would
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  Ridge, and Revive. I'm pleased to say that I did get to play
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  Chariforming Mars, and I did get to play Revive, although we did make
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  a crucial mistake in that play, so I don't count the scores from that
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  game, but we did play it. And then I did not get a
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  chance to play would Ridge, and I did not get a chance to play
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  Vagrant Song. So I played three of the I played two of the four,
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  which is two thirds of a success, which is actually my average this
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  farthest year. I've played eighteen out of the twenty seven potential games, so
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  exactly two thirds. At this point, it's probably not possible for me to
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  catch all the way up because I only have three months left and I can
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  only gain back one month. One game per month if I play all four,
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  so I guess my goal will be just to do as well as I
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  can. But I can't get all the way back to thirty six out of
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  thirty six, which would be the top score for the year. Oh I
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  could add twelve, but I'm at eighteen. So the best thing I could
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  do if I managed to play October, November, December and hit all four
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  is thirty out of thirty six. The odds aren't good of that, so
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  I'm just going to do my best to keep doing three. I tried a
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  few new games this month, not as many as I often do, but
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  nonetheless it's I was no slouch. I tried There's been a Murder, Mind
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  Management, Poetry for Neanderthals, Sweet and Spicy, Revive Astra, and Paku
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  Paku. I did not try any new expansions this month, so that's a
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  whiff. I didn't dust off very many games oh as at the end of
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  this month. Going into this month, I had played eighty four new games.
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  As at the end of the month, I played ninety one, so
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  on my way to you know, it's it's fun to do one hundred or
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  I guess one hundred and four would be two a week. That's a good
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  goal to have, and I should make that without too much trouble. I
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  think out of the dust plays. I came into the month going having played
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  forty six games that I dusted off, and I dusted off New York Slice
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  six years ago. I had played that Rainbow Rabbits one year nine months,
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  Perudo two years three months, and Access and Allies Guadalcanal, which had been
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  three years nine months. Over those four games, that puts me at fifty
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  games this year dusted off. So that's pretty good. If I'm dusting off
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  one a week, that's a very healthy rate. Actually, at this rate
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  I'm aiming I'm going to end up with much more than one a week,
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  so please with that. In the ten for ten challenge, I did not
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  make much progress, but I did play one Tom Layman game, which got
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  me to five Tom Lehman games. I did play one game of Rezar Kana
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  on the table with my daughter. In my fifty two game challenge last month,
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  I acknowledge that I had only played a couple last month, and I
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  said, now I'm gonna have to really be very thoughtful about which games I
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  play, because everything in here is difficult to do and you have to really
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  think through it. That is certainly the true. This month, I did
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  not make much effort to make sure that I played any games from that list,
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  and in fact I did not, So I'm still at thirty nine out
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  of fifty two, which means if I want to get those other twelve thirteen,
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  I'm going to really have to buckle down and do one a week basically
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  from here on out. I think it's doable, but problematic. My painting
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  challenge this month, I was going to do some Hellboy minis, finished the
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  Nazis from Hellboy and then starting the Cerebria minis. I did not get any
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  of those done either. No progress on the minis painting at all, Hellboy
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  not painted at all. I think what I'm gonna do is put the hell
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  Boy meetings away, see if I can make the make some work on the
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  Cerebria minni's, and then when I finished those, I'll go back to Hellboy.
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  Should be doable, so my shelf of opportunity got bigger this month again.
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  I added one, two, three, four five games to my shelf
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  of opportunity. That's Palaces of Carrera, five Minute Mystery, Hadrian's Wall,
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  Joan of Arc and Paku Paku and the only one I played from the areas
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  Paku Paku. So I didn't make a great didn't make great progress on the
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  shelf opportunity. I did, of course play Revive as well, so I'm
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  at sixty four games on there. My collection size is at five seventy I
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  came in with it at five seventy two. Like I said, I got
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  rid of a few games. Namely, I gave five games to my son's
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  board game club from his school, Indigo, The How I Survived Game,
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  Mister Listers, Quiz Shootout, Dread Curse, and This Game Goes to eleven.
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  Those were all donated to the high school board Game club give them some
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  other games to play. Also removed four games from my collection because I was
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  updating my collection cards and I discovered there were some games that I had removed
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  from my collection but had not marked as removed from my collection, namely Hughes
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  and Q's. I sold that, Mammote Times Up and three Laws of Robotics
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  I donated to my college Board Game Society. So those are actually in my
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  office at school, but I don't think of them as part of my college
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  or my home board game collection anymore because I don't have them at home all
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  right. The last thing to share is my Top fifty challenge once again.
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  The goal is to play every game from my Top fifty in the two years
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  between when I do my Top fifty and when I refresh it. This year,
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  I had twelve left to go going into this year, and I played
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  Terraforming Mars, which is one of those. So the ones I have left
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  are Android, Netrunner, Vampire, the Eternal Struggle. Both of those are
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  going to be really hard to play because they are collectible card games or you
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  know, lifestyle games, and if I'm not into them right now, it's
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  really hard to pick up and play them. Net Runner would be easier because
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  of Jintecki dot net and null Signal is still active. I think people are
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  still playing Vampire as well, but I don't know how to hook up with
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  those folks. I think the odds of me playing Vampire are pretty slim.
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  Net Runner is probably pretty slim as well, but we'll see. I might
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  get up the gumption to do it. Which leaves Cerebria, a touch of
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  Evil, Terromistica and Trismajistice, so that would be one game a month for
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  the next for October, November, December, and a second game in one
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  of those months. I think this first month, I'm going to play Cerebria
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  and a Touch of Evil hopefully, and that will get me back on base.
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  All in all, it was a good month for gaming. I really
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  had a fun time engaging with those games and starting to think toward what games
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  I'm going to play for next month. So as I looked towards to October,
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  I'm sure I'm going to play a number of spooky games at my board
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  game club. My college board game club will be meeting twice and I'm gonna
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  bring some spooky games for them to play. I'll bring Till Dawn, I'll
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  bring Gloom, will play hopefully Betrayal, the House on the Hill, and
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  maybe Mysterium. Those are all spooky options. It's also thinking about the bloody
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  in I'd be interested in something more elaborate, like the Fear of Dracula,
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  but we can't do that in the space and with the people that we have
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  coming to that club. I could try Dead of Winter, but I'm not
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  sure the group would be interested in that. I also don't have a reliable
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  sense of people arriving on time, So if somebody comes an hour late,
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  it kind of stinks in a small group to have started a long game because
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  then they just can't play. So we tend to play games that are shorter
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  so people can cycle in. But anyway, so on my list of three
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  this month, my four games on the top of the stack Versus a game
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  I borrowed called Last Friday. Last Friday is a game in which you play
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  so one versus many game. One player plays a stalker horror monster like Jason
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  from Friday the thirteenth. In fact, it's called Last Friday because that's the
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  idea, and then the other players play campers who are trying to outwit Jason
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  and defeat him. It's supposed to be pretty cool. It looks interesting.
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  I'm not sure to work for board game Clug because I don't know how many
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  it plays, but I'm going to try to bring it this week and see
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  if people want to play it. If I'm not able to play it there,
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  then I definitely want to get it played at toggle because I borrowed it
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  from somebody and I need to return it. But also I put it on
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  top of my sack and now I gotta Next up is A Touch of Evil.
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  Touch of Evil is one of my favorite. It's my favorite of the
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  Flying Frog games, although Last Down on Earth is a close second. A
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  Touch of Evil, you are investigators in a colonial village and you're trying to
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  stop a big bad It's goofy, it's silly, it's fun, and I
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  really enjoy playing it. I think we're gonna try to play it at toggle.
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  I have the I have the whole game, and so we'll set up
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  all three boards and everybody will grab an investigator and we'll all have a rip
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  or in good time. For my solo game, I left, Hunted would
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  really in the list. It is a game I want to play, and
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  it fits Spooky Month because it is set sort of around the Stranger Things type
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  situation, so playing it in that perspective would be just fine. Finally,
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  I also kept in their Vagrant Song, the other one from last month that
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  I did not play. It is also spooky themed. It's about a ghost
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  train and people trying to stop a ghost train or something, so I'm happy
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  to give that one a try as well. I'm hoping we get to play
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  that as a family though. When we'll do that, I'm not sure.
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  So those are the four games that I have going this month on my top
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  and my stack. You know, All in all, it's been a pretty
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  good year for game playing so far, but I feel like I've really been
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  neglecting my shelf of opportunity. I was looking back, and I have very
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  few games that were on the list on that shelf at the beginning of the
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  year that I played this year, which feels wasteful to me. So I
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  really want to start putting effort into getting those played at least once, and
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  then if I don't like them, I can put them on the cell pile
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  or trade them away. So how did your game gameplay going? How did
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  your gameplay go in September? Did you play all the games you intended to?
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  If not, which ones did you fail to get played? Head over
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  to board game Gee guild three two six nine and share your month's triumphs and
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  tragedies. If you want to reach out to me directly, you can email
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  me Brendan at ratabox games dot com. You can send me a message on
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  board game geek wanbat ninety nine is might use their name there, or you
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  can reach out to me on board game arena or you cant the dot dee
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  in both places. Wanbat ninety nine is my user name, and I would
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  love to play a game with you. In particular, I'm keen to hear
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  what spooky games do you think you're gonna play this month? Share them over
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  in the guild. Thanks for joining me on my walk today. I hope
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  that your next walk is as pleasant as mine was. Godbye, Brought to
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  you by Rattlebox Game