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The 'geek Asks 12 · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:00
  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the Podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step
• 0:08
  out for a walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
• 0:11
  I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:12
  [music]
• 0:13
  Good morning, listeners.
• 0:14
  It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago and I'm out for a walk before I have an all-day
• 0:27
  meeting inside.
• 0:29
  It's just going to be... it's a Zoom meeting.
• 0:31
  It's an eight-hour Zoom meeting.
• 0:33
  I presume we get an hour off in the middle, but yeah, it's going to be something.
• 0:38
  This is also one of the rare moments when I've had to remake an episode.
• 0:45
  I can probably count on my hands the number of times
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  I've remade an episode in the seven years I've been doing this podcast, but every now and
• 0:53
  then again, I will, for some reason--either a bad microphone or inattentative thinking--
• 0:59
  I will forget to hit record, whatever.
• 1:01
  I'll have to redo a whole episode.
• 1:03
  This might be the first time, however, that I'm redoing the episode and completely changing
• 1:07
  what I'm saying.
• 1:09
  Yesterday I went for a walk to the post office and back and that post office is about a 25-minute
• 1:14
  walk, so I actually recorded two episodes. Except that I forgot to hit record when I left
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  the post office and I only recorded one episode.
• 1:20
  So that's the episode I'm re-recording.
• 1:23
  And the episode I'm making is what I'm returning to.
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  This is the 12th episode of this type that I've made in the seven years we've done it.
• 1:32
  I looked back over the timeline.
• 1:33
  I used to do this when I first started doing it.
• 1:36
  I did it every couple months except for the last three of these.
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  I've done it about once a year.
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  It's been about eight months since I did this.
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  The last time was August or July of 2023.
• 1:51
  And so it seems, apropos, it's time for another: The 'geek Asks.
• 1:55
  In case you're new to the podcast or newer, The 'geek Asks is a sequence in which I open up
• 2:02
  the boardgamegeek forums and I look at the recent posts and I just read the subject
• 2:08
  line and then I assume that that subject line is in fact a question for me to answer on
• 2:13
  my podcast.
• 2:14
  I don't read the post that they have written, so sometimes I have to guess what they're
• 2:17
  talking about.
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  And I find it's a nice way to ponder different aspects of the board game hobby without having
• 2:24
  to do a lot of planning.
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  So weirdly I did this yesterday.
• 2:28
  I did the whole thing and then I got to the end and realized I hadn't recorded it.
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  So I'm doing it today.
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  I'm not going back to find those same threads I look at yesterday.
• 2:36
  I'm just looking at the most recent threads today.
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  There may be some overlap, but it's been a whole day and the board game geek forums move
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  quickly.
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  So the odds that all find the same thread again are low.
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  Unless it's a very busy thread in which case it's near the top of the recent again.
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  All right, well let's get into it.
• 2:56
  So the first thread I see here is...
• 3:00
  All right, I'm skipping a couple.
• 3:04
  "Top five game night accessories."
• 3:06
  This is a good one.
• 3:07
  I think I've done a podcast about this or about similar ideas.
• 3:11
  Those will be in the thread if they are.
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  So thinking about holding a game night, what kinds of accessories are best for a game night
• 3:18
  specifically?
• 3:20
  So when I think about what the top five game night accessories are, after thinking about
• 3:24
  game night versus just game playing, I think those are different lists.
• 3:28
  And I may not have made a top five game night list, but I'll top my head I'm going to say,
• 3:33
  number one, a good folding table that's not your game table.
• 3:36
  So if your house is like ours, our main game table is the dining room table.
• 3:40
  When we have people over to play games, that's where we play.
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  And that means we don't have a place to put appetizing stuff.
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  So we have a good nice long like six foot or eight foot folding table that we set up to
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  put all the snacks and stuff on.
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  And then we also have individual card tables or lap tables that we put in between the seats
• 4:02
  for people to actually put their food on so it's not on the gaming surface itself.
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  Second, we have a really good, a good game mat that fits the table really well.
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  This is an excellent investment because it makes the game play really fun.
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  A nice neoprene mat makes the gaming surface easy to use.
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  And I think it works really well.
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  The only downside to ours is our table is a large oval and the gaming mat we have doesn't
• 4:29
  quite fit it.
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  That's two.
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  Number three, game night accessory.
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  I would say a good way to play some mood music for the game.
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  I don't think any of these is all that original, by the way.
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  A good way to play some mood music.
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  We have a sort of Google home thing which is kind of like an Amazon speaker or whatever
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  right near the table.
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  So one of us will stream music from our phone onto that as mood music for the table.
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  I recommend using Melodice.org as your game music space of choice.
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  You have these YouTube lists and somehow they play them without commercials and you
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  are able to listen to these music lists that fellow members of Boardgamegeek or other
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  the Board Game Forum, Board Game Community have put together to go with games.
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  So I like that a lot.
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  That's three.
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  Number four for game night.
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  Game night accessory.
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  I will say.
• 5:39
  I'm going to say snazzy resources.
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  I have a little shelf full of snazzy resources that I have accumulated and we use those for
• 5:51
  substitutes for resources when we're playing.
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  Like when we play Orleons, for instance, we'll substitute in the snazzy resources for
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  the disks that the game comes with or that squares look the game comes with.
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  Just makes it elevates the experience a little bit.
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  And then number five, I'll say good lighting.
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  If you don't have good lighting, you don't have a good game time.
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  So those are my five.
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  They're not really accessories so much as like what do you need to do to set up a good gaming
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  experience.
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  That's a little different than accessories but that's what I have.
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  All right.
• 6:22
  So that is top five game night accessories.
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  "Anyone an early riser wants to play a game?"
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  If I ended up in a different situation than I'm in now, which is normally when I go to
• 6:35
  game cons now I'm going with XYZ game labs as part of their crew working on games.
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  As a reminder, if you've never heard me mention that before, I am a co-partner at
• 6:47
  XYZ Game Labs.
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  So when we go to cons, we generally are working them so I don't really get to sit and play games
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  very much.
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  But if and when I do, yes, getting up early and meeting someone to play a game would
• 6:59
  absolutely be something I'd want to do.
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  I love that idea.
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  Here's someone wrote in "1960, the making of the president versus watergate."
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  This is an interesting thing to consider.
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  1960, the making of president versus watergate.
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  So 1960 is a really interesting game.
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  It's interesting and thoughtful and plays on the card driven genre.
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  You know, it's very similar to Twilight struggle that way.
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  And it involves back and forth wrestling for control of the country.
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  Watergate is the same kind of game, but functions a little bit differently and I think I don't
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  like it as much.
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  It's shorter, which is does go in its advantage.
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  But ultimately, I think 1960 feels like a more legitimate struggle to me.
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  It's something I'm not really happy that Nixon was running, but at the time he wasn't
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  corrupted and destroying the democracy the way that he would later or attempt to versus
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  watergate.
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  It feels like there is one side that's clearly in the right and if you're playing the Nixon
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  player, you're just trying to cover up your crimes.
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  I don't really find that very compelling.
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  No for me, it's the theme that drives which game I'd rather play.
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  And 1960, the making of the president is the game for me.
• 8:34
  "How do you decide when you should not try to publish a game?"
• 8:40
  So this is a tricky thing, but the real element of it is, are you getting consistent positive
• 8:46
  feedback from your playtesters?
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  So I mean, there are lots of times where you might decide to abandon a design.
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  In our process, we start with, monkey around with something and say, is there something here?
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  If there is something here, great.
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  If not, either we'll tinker with it no more to see if we can get there to be something
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  here or we'll set it aside and maybe pick up that idea later in some other way.
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  Then the next step is getting a prototype together, really making the game work well for us.
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  Do we think this works well?
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  Are we willing to subject it to other people?
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  We generally jump into playtesting with other people as quickly as we can.
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  Then what we play with other people is this fun.
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  What part of it is fun?
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  Do you like it?
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  Do you think it's a game you might be interested to play again?
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  Sort of asking questions to get people to think about what they thought of the game and
• 9:40
  articulate that.
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  And if you're getting consistent, that's another place to drop it.
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  The third one is as you're pushing toward the end, when you're sort of in a more finalized
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  form or closer to finalized form, talking to people about it, doing blind playtesting,
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  one of the questions I'll have to ask is, would you buy this?
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  Is this a game that, you know, if you can imagine it in a more completed form or more professionally
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  published form, is this a game you'd buy?
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  And if you get consistent nose on that, then that's a real warning sign to try not to
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  try to publish the game.
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  If you can't drum up interest with people you're directly playing it with, how are you going
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  to get interest from people who don't have a chance to play it?
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  So that is the steps I see in the question of how do you decide when to not try to publish
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  a game.
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  Now it gets more complicated if you are paying for the publication yourself or if you are
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  kick starting the publication, those are two different goals.
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  The advantage of kick starting, of course, is that you have to drum up interest in the
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  game in order to publish the game.
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  And if you aren't able to drum up, sophisticated interest, then you don't publish it.
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  But you often have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars getting ready to do the kick
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  starter.
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  So there is sunk cost there if the kick starter fails.
• 11:00
  Let's see.
• 11:01
  "Can someone help me find this game?"
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  So maybe not.
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  "I need help identifying a game."
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  I don't know if I have 11 reactions.
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  I bet someone did help them find it with 11.
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  "Too many bones teacher."
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  I mean, I probably wouldn't call out a teacher for having too many bones.
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  I don't even know how you tell.
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  Is somebody like freakishly shaped?
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  Or I don't even know what it means to say.
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  Somebody has too many bones.
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  Oh, do you mean someone to teach you Too Many Bones?
• 11:33
  I wonder how you look for that on boardgamegeek.
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  It's in the BGG spring, within the BGG spring forum.
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  So they're looking for someone to come to BGG spring or who's going to be there to teach
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  them Too Many Bones.
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  Okay.
• 11:53
  "Question for those who have stored games on painted shelves."
• 11:57
  Oh, interesting.
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  Is the question, does the paint rub off on the games?
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  I might, if I were using painted shelves.
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  I might get some contact paper and put it on the surface that the games are going to
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  be sitting on just to be sure that they don't stick.
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  Because depending on the kind of paint you use, setting stuff on a painted surface could
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  cause some trouble.
• 12:18
  Someone asked in the BGG spring forum, "I wonder what the freebies were."
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  Does that mean that they ran out?
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  That's a bummer.
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  I know BGG spring sort of famously has a lot of freebies.
• 12:29
  Oh, man, game nerds deal of the day.
• 12:32
  "Great Western Trail second edition rails to the North expansion."
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  That is something that's been on my purchase list because Great Western Trail is a game
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  I like.
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  I'm terrible at it.
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  Literally terrible.
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  I've never won a game.
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  But I know trails to the North is, rails to the North is really the essential expansion
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  for that game.
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  And everybody who likes Great Western Trail says like, "This is the special sauce."
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  So I have been keeping my eye out for that at some point.
• 13:00
  And it looks like there was a deal of the day that I missed.
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  "Lunch hour gaming.
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  San Juan, roll for the Galaxy, jump drive."
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  What's next?
• 13:09
  Well, it feels like with those three, Res Arcana ought to be on your list.
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  Res Arcana can run a little long depending on what kind of lunch hour you have.
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  If you actually have a lunch hour, Res Arcana should be fine.
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  But that game fits right in with those others.
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  In fact, I think it's better than any of those others.
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  I mean, Roll for the Galaxy is fine.
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  But I think Res Arcana is better.
• 13:29
  If you're looking for something that's not Tom-Lehman produced, you could do, Oh My Goods.
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  That's a really good one that's not super long.
• 13:39
  Bohnanza runs a little bit long, I think.
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  Mottainai is about 20 minutes.
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  The first couple games are rough because they take a long time to learn.
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  But a game of Mottainai, it rarely goes over a half hour.
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  So that's an excellent lunchtime game.
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  And it's flexible enough and deep enough that there's a lot of room to grow in that one.
• 13:59
  Definitely go for that.
• 14:00
  All right, you have time for one or two more.
• 14:07
  "Database into Libib?"
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  But this will be my last one.
• 14:09
  I saw this question yesterday.
• 14:12
  If you don't know what Libib is, it is an app that you use to manage your collections of
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  things at your house.
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  Our family used it to manage our books.
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  It has a barcode scanner and then it knows what the book is most of the time.
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  And we use it to keep track of what books we have and where they are in the house.
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  So if you look at for a book, you can look it up in the Lebib and be like, oh, it's on the
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  basement bookshelves.
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  But more importantly, when you're going to buy a book, you can look at how much they do.
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  We already have it.
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  Because it's my daughter's interest in literature and our interest in literature and my father-in-law's
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  interest in literature.
• 14:45
  It's really common for us to get books, not realize they're in the house.
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  And so we've had times where somebody buys a book and they come home and they lose a new
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  book and they go, 'oh my God, we have that book already.'
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  And that's always a bummer.
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  You have to go back and return it.
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  So we're using, we use Libib as a stopgap when you're going to buy a book.
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  You check Libib to make sure we don't already have it.
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  It works great.
• 15:07
  I did notice a couple weeks ago that they have a board game function when you're making a
• 15:11
  new shelf.
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  You can say a board game shelf.
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  And that's great.
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  Except that when you try it, the barcode scanner doesn't have any items in it and the database
• 15:19
  doesn't exist.
• 15:20
  You have to manually enter everything.
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  And the idea is it's a share database so as you manually enter things, other people can
• 15:26
  use those manual entries.
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  But to start with, it stinks and you can't use the barcode scanner.
• 15:32
  As far as I can tell, you can't scan the barcode into the system.
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  If you could do that, maybe, maybe I would participate because that is it, but as it is, you can't
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  really use Libib to document your board game library without a ton of work.
• 15:50
  And so this person is asking, is it possible to get the board game geek library at the database
• 15:54
  into Libib?
• 15:55
  I suspect the board game geek would not want them to do that.
• 15:59
  That's their whole thing.
• 16:01
  Like board game geek's whole thing is their archive or their database.
• 16:05
  So giving it away to another company feels unlikely.
• 16:08
  I'll be interested to see what happens though.
• 16:10
  I'm going to check out that for him.
• 16:11
  You should do.
• 16:12
  If you're interested in any of these threads, there will be links in the show notes to those
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  particular threads on board game geek.
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  So you can go see what people said, see if I knew what I was talking about when I made
• 16:21
  suggestions.
• 16:46
  That brings me to the end of my walk today.
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  Thanks for joining me on my walk today.
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  I hope you're next walk.
• 16:51
  This is present as mine was.
• 16:53
  Bye bye.
• 17:15
  Brought to you by Rattlebox Games.