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Hello Jamey! If you haven't played it, I recommend Tales & Games: The Hare & the Tortoise. In this game, players also have to secretly bet on five different animals that are racing, but then, during the race, players have much more agency to decide what animals will move, or at least, that they would like to move, since not all played animals will always move depending on a few funny and thematic rules like: The hare always moves 2 spaces unless she is in the lead. In that case, she does not move. The tortoise moves always 1 space, even if no cards where played. If the wolf howls, only the wolf moves. Since the amount of cards for each animal is fixed, players will be incentivized to play cards of animals they do not favour as a bluff or on circumstances where they may be wasted.

16.6! My best round of the 3 :)

16.1 for me!

Ah shoot, I was out with the family yesterday, but I'm excited to see that the Jenga realm got a play! You were correct about not being able to cross out a side block after crossing out a center block, for that thematic reason exactly. It's tough trying to create a set of rules that maintains the thematic elements while being consistent with the Rolling Realms format, especially when you're already running out of space because of the graphics!

I am a little hesitant with Arcs because I've struggled to enjoy Root. My brain is absolutely overloaded the entire game as I try to hold every player's different abilities and objectives in my mind, to understand their strategies while also trying to remember exactly how I'm supposed to play my own character. I know that for some people that makes it perfect, but for me I just feel overwhelmed. I'm sure if I watched lots of tutorial videos I'd get the hang of it, but I just didn't find the experience rewarding enough to justify all of that mental work. I've never played Oath, though I love the art and the idea of it. Now I'm hearing these amazing things about Arcs and feeling a little hesitant to try and learn it. But I love the theme, I think the reinvention of the trick-taking mechanism for action selection is really cool, and this combat seems really cool too. I'm just a little worried it might be as hard to "grok" as Root was.

All 9 of the realms in this game were so fun to watch! To all the realm designers: Fantastic job! :)

The other thing that I liked is that the defender gets to claim the attackers ships as trophies if they are destroyed as a result of the red and orange dice.

Just picked up Arcs today and played my first game, it is fantastic. Too much to comment on at the moment but the combat is so unique and well thought out in this game it is absolutely incredible.

I backed Root from its inception with all expansions. But after backing Oath, and being underwhelmed (it’s fine, I just not love it), I was reluctant to back another Leder/ColeW game. So I didn’t back Arcs. But after watching all these videos about gameplay and reading the rulebook--I’m now sold. Pre-ordered from the Leder site, hoping it will come in September. I’m very excited about this. I enjoy good combat mechanisms. Bring it on!

Looking forward to the new Redux edition. ✌️ I’d like to know if it will include the same eraser cloths or will the sharpies have the eraser cap(which i think is better)? 😊

Last Light has only attacking dice. But no defense mechanisms in the dice. It's just whether the attacker hits or not. Still speeds up play, but Arcs does it better

I also love that the attacker makes all decisions on what gets hurt, really speeds up play. The only games I can think of (other than Arcs) where the attacker makes *all* decisions are deterministic games which you ruled out!

So excited to play this game! I too think it's clever to have the "Defense" in the actual dice the aggressor is using. Will you look to play this game again?

As soon as I saw the combat mechanic for this I thought “what a great clean way to represent the different kinds of space combat onto planets without stages and lots of dice rolling”. Not surprised since Root also has a terrifically simple and elegant combat dice mechanic.

love arcs. i've played some games on TTS and it's an instant classic

In regards to engine building games, I'm eager to get Raising Robots to the table. When it comes to guilty pleasures, if you like something, and it's not hurting you or anyone else, you shouldn't feel guilty for liking it. That includes movies, music, books, and board games! Don't let others yuck your yum.

The first game we are publishing actually uses the variability of the two choice combo to add tons of re-playability. You are a disembodied spirit being summoned back to life by a world class mage. As his magic tugs you back to physical realm, visions of species and magics being to fill your mind and take hold. There are 24 species and 16 magic classes creating 384 combos, but you only get to choose 5 of the secondary classes 10 spells - so the possible variations are in the thousands. People love getting thematic combinations like a Lich Necromancer or a Gnome Technomancer. The playtesting for balance though.... We're trying to get it done in a year and two months before kickstarting. (Speaking of which I just got your book in the mail yesterday.)

My tastes have definitely evolved! I like much more complex games these days, so even though I’m gaming at least four days a week, I’m playing one or two games each session rather than four or five. I’ve noticed some things about myself: I don’t like mean games. I don’t like dexterity games or real-time games. My favourite moments in the hobby are usually when I’m learning games or teaching games. I play for the intellectual puzzle, and interesting decisions make games fun. I usually lose, but that doesn’t matter, as long as I don’t feel like I’m doomed to lose from the start. Theme is an interesting discussion topic for me. I’m designing a game with a striking theme, which is surprising because I prefer to learn games by their mechanics: how does a turn look, what’s the objective, when does the game end, etc. My friend who does game design sessions with me learns games the same way. But I think of my cousin, who came into the board gaming hobby via RPGs, and she learns games in a more narrative way, so I try to think of how intuitive my mechanisms will be given the theme, and I try to kibosh any ideas that would be too difficult to explain thematically (unless they’re really, really good!). I’ve come across some games whose themes and mechanisms don’t match very well, and that is their main downfall. Take Parks (Henry Audubon), for example. It’s a gorgeous game with fun gameplay and plenty of references to nature, but nothing in that game makes sense thematically. You take pictures (somehow there’s only one camera in the game that everyone keeps stealing from each other) that match the art of the parks, but the pictures are taken on the trail and not in the parks. When you visit a park, no one else can visit it again for the rest of the game; you also can’t visit that park unless you’ve already seen the scenery on the trail, which defeats the purpose of a park. When someone wants to stand beside you on the trail, they have to extinguish a campfire. When you fill a canteen with water, a baby animal pops out and you can use it as currency. It’s all extremely strange and confusing, which led to me eventually giving the game away, even though it was fun and beautiful; it was just too hard to teach for a game of its weight. The first game can make a big difference. My first game of Tapestry was terrible (sorry, Jamey!): I was matched with a board and a faction whose strengths were completely at odds with each other, and neither of the other players-who had both played before-noticed until it was too late. Suffice it to say, I noticed the anti-synergy after a few turns, and for most of the game I was essentially waiting for the inevitable loss. I ended up getting around one-fourth of the next highest player’s score, and I was really unmotivated to play it again. I eventually did, which raised my opinion of the game substantially, but I still wouldn’t consider the game a favourite because of the sourness of that first play (even though I like similar games, such as The Gallerist, quite a lot). As for the “fun” element, I agree that fun takes many forms; excitement is only one form of fun, and there are many others. One of my latest flames is Evacuation by Vladimír Suchý, and I love the tightness of the resources and the breadth of the implications of your decisions. I introduced it to a friend of mine that I’ve only recently started gaming with. He told me with a smile, “Agh! This game is a f***ing nightmare,” but I later learned that he, like me, loved making agonising decisions in games, so his remark was actually high praise! Thanks for the video! It provides food for thought as I continue my design process.

For me, a guilty pleasure would be enjoying something which is objectively or critically 'below standard' or nor intended for me. For movies it would be something like watching the latest Fast & Furious, knowing there's much better films out there, or re-watching a cheesy rom-com, instead of seeing a well reviewed, award winning title. The 'guilt' is just acknowledging that there may be better ways to spend your time. Harder to think of games equivalents though, maybe defaulting to Uno instead of learning any number of similar length/complexity card games like The Crew etc

I believe there are also local quests on the board which change to other cards during the storage phase if you don't pick them up, I thought that was pretty cool to have the world change because you didn't interfere.

Mine are Tang Garden, Art Society, Pastiche, Fit to Print, Blokus, Indigo, Donut Shop, Big City (20th Anniversary Ed) and Foundations of Rome. Honorable Mention that may qualify: Mexica

Also, I don’t think you can join discord without an invite or at least knowing the invite URL, or at least I can’t figure it out.

guilty (without the pleasure) happens when I teach a game and the people I’m teaching end up not liking it.

The stress track reminds me a bit about time in Patchwork. One player may focus on large tiles and thus advance through time much faster with some benefits and some disadvantages, one them, this player will play less turns than a player that picks mostly small tiles.

I've never had clarity on what people mean by guilty pleasure games and the ideas by the community watching the video were great! I loved the insights and examples 👍

I feel something similar with Century (the first one, haven't played the others) because of the limited storage space. First, I get that feeling whenever I convert crystals into other crystals. You may remove 8 yellow crystals and replace them with 4 purple crystals, for example. And second, each time you construct a golem (that's the edition we have), you clear part of your storage to make space for new crystals with which to work for new golems.

I also got 15.5 to tie Garrett!

Jamey, if you never played the classical graphic adventures of the 90s (Monkey Island 1 and 2, The Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Frim Fandango, etc..), I think you owe it to yourself to play them. You will not probably find any mechanism worthy of making a video, but they are just entertaining games full of funny puzzles and situations. No dexterity needed!

Riley’s “dark secret” is a character teased earlier in the movie inside the vault. It is revealed as the post-credits gag, nothing serious or character defining but just a playful nod to what we would have considered a “deep dark secret” at that age. I’ve shared my thoughts on Inside Out 2 on the blog post as well but I’ll reiterate that it was an amazing movie with a very dramatic and well executed ending!

52:09 I get where you are coming from. Clip show or montage episodes drive me nuts. I watched an episode of Big City Greens (a cartoon on Disney) that parodied clip shows. The characters were complaining about being in a clip show and their dad told them “we can’t afford to have new adventures we can just remember old adventures to save money.” It was hilarious and they had fun with it instead of making it a pure clip show, for instance one of the clips from a character’s memory had all the wrong voice lines because she couldn’t be bothered to remember who said what. Clip shows were more relevant before streaming services when you actually had years worth of vague memories worth revisiting.

34:53 I am having trouble motivating myself to watch the Acolyte because the trailer was a bit of a turn off, it seems kinda dark but as a fan of Phantom Menace I’m interested in seeing a story in that time period. Seems everything is bounty hunters and outcasts and I miss seeing the Jedi. But this is more about the rise of the sith apparently. The dark side centric stories in the animated shows were interesting but I’m not sure I could watch an entire dark side series. I like a lot of stuff the fans hate, like Phantom Menace and Last Jedi so I can’t exactly check what other people are saying about it either to help gauge my interest. I do hope to get to it eventually.

It will be great to hear about Engine Builders you like I am only not getting in to them and fairly sure that my first one in my collection was Scythe which I bought just last year. Sadly my groups don't know the game and I slightly fear dropping it on some due to its fairly intimidating look. Very much enjoyed a few solo games myself. And then Wyrmspan I am really enjoying. Oh look, both Stonemaiargames! And Cryo from ZMAN Games just arrived. I see lots of 2+ Player engine builders so any with solo I am keen to discover

Good morning Jamey! Missed another livecast :( Guilty Pleasure game: Monopoly...if played correctly it's a good time killer and low thinky levels.

Pandoria--double hexes with a sort of 7 Wonders mechanism alongside it. Citrus--Interesting push-pull of "playing your own board" and player interaction. Carc, of course. So much fun solo and a wide variety of styles available, from minding your own to absolutely cutthroat.

Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig is my #1 and it’s not particularly close. Works so so well as a game for a larger group

I'm a big fan of Cascadia, Isle of Skye and Glen More II. I would add Habitats, Glass Roads, Carpe Diem and Akropolis to the list

Re your Taylor Swift discussion - I think what you see in her situation is collaborating with the one on the top (she featured with Gracie Abrams in the song Us, which made it an instant add to my playlist), If you do try to ride the coattails of the people on top you do have to be ready to also share the burn. She gets a lot of flack for all the same things that others in her industry also do - but she is in a place where that has minimal impact on her, but I would not want to be collateral damage from it though. It’s funny that you ask, because to me, in the niche hobby we are in, I would say that you are more of a Taylor than a lot of others. Your personal integrity, social media presence and strategy, and the games that you have in your catalogue does have you in the top tier of the hobby. Does it not feel that way to you? Maybe I am just a SM groupie :P

I go camping with one of my gaming groups every year. I actually do take games like Wingspan with me - I have a pouch of those flat glass marble things from the dollar store (in the home decor section), and we use them to set on the cards to hold them down.

Bacon is so rad!! Glad you had a great time!!

Forstpunk is a great adaptation. Worth a try. Coop city builder, resource management with story elements

I don't know who often you read comments... The game without expansions was quite expansive and I am still thinking whenever I should buy it. I initially wanted to make a different version of it but instead of armies having an elemental summons that fight one another, but then again without remodeling the map and possibly the way cities and towers work (not mentioning cards) it would be hard to make it its own beast. So the idea of taking a game and switching the theme to create a different one with similar mechanics...

Can't express how important your contribution to the hobby is. Thank you for all your work.

Terrific video! I tend to love tile-laying games and have played 6 of your 10. I'd pick Castles of Burgundy, Cascadia and Zen Garden as my top 3 from that list. In addition, I love Kohaku, Java, Akropolis, Carson City, Babylonia, Oros, Carcassonne: The City, Leaf, Dragon Castle, Fjords, Kingdomino: Origins and Alhambra. Polyomino games are great too, and I could make a list of thise too 👍

Thanks a lot for the video, Jamey and Chris! I feel, though, that some of the games here are miscategorized. I would argue that Battlestar Galactica (and maybe Shadows over Camelot, although I do not have experience with it) is not a semi-cooperative game, but a team game with hidden allegiances. In my opinion, in semi-coop games, there must exist a "Nobody wins" end state and that threat is what forces (or should force) players to cooperate with rivals. BSG does not have that end game state. Either humans win or cylons win, and and both teams are always populated. Regarding what I consider proper semi-coop games, I only have played Archipelago. I did not like it at all and I feel like the reason for that (and many other players dislike of the game) is the disparity between our own valuation of end game states (from better to worse: I win, we all lose, somebody else wins) compared to how the game wants the players to value them (again, from better to worse: I win, somebody else wins, we all lose). That disparity made us lose all our games after the second or third crisis, since no player was willing to sacrifice resources to the common pool knowing that it would benefit another player. In fact, I would be as bold as to say that I consider semi-coop games broken by design since I believe that a large portion of gamers prefers that all players lose (which they regard as a tied game) than another player winning (which they regard as a lost game).

Definitely the mechanic majority in my collection. I’ll have to check some of these out. Some of my own favorites that weren’t mentioned: Zooloretto, love the draft / push your luck each round as once you select your “Cargo Trunk” of animals/money you are done for the round. so as they fill you may get two items because you really want them, or wait to see the 3rd tile that comes out with what you want (and hope it is still available). Explorers of the North Sea. Generally not a fan of “pickup and deliver” games but this one worked really well. The Rocks and Ruins expansion only makes it better with shipwrecks and fortresses. Akrotiki is another solid tile/pickup and deliver that is 2p only. Favorite Solo and happens to be favorite Multiplayer. Planet Unknown. Super fast setup regardless of player count. Simultaneous play moves this game along great! event cards can really create dilemmas and opportunities, and very satisfying to meet scoring objectives.

Neon Gorilla His channel has been going for a year or so and his videos are highly edited and excellent. Excellent new content creator in the board game space.

Azul is a goated game, it will probably forever be in our rotation! Carcassonne as well, especially witb a few expansions mixed in. I just love the visuals of building a sprawling map!

Liege of Games!

Azul was the first modern board game I bought! Love Cascadia, it's in my top 5 favourite games ever. Look out for Life in Reterra, the new one from Eric Lang. Really smart combination of tile placement with added polyomino bonuses, it's great!

Other than ones already mentioned. (I especially like Space Base) Other dice based games that stand out for me. Roll for the Galaxy King of Tokyo Las Vegas Mountain Goats Railroad Ink And I prefer Can't Stop to Deep Sea Adventure. They have a similar niche with push your luck