Hey guys. And look, you can see us. We're on video. We have finally made it. It is 100 turns later. We are finally Meeple to Meeple is at episode 100. Thank you so much for all of you who have put up with our shenanigans for 100 episodes. Now you're in trouble. This is where the real the real trouble begins. You have to look at. Us. Look at us, yeah. As always, I remain PJ. Yes. And I've made it to 100 episodes. I am Gareth with a few stand insurance along the way.
A few stand insurance and we've got some special guests for this segment of the episode. We've got a lot, we've got a lot of stuff to fill in, a lot of content, so we'll get right to it with Craig and Becky from Get Into Games on Air. Probably my second favorite podcast behind our own, of course, Craig and Zach. Out. How are you? Hello. Hello. We're good. Thank you. Thank you for having us on this momentous occasion. Episode 100. Thanks for. Joining.
Us 66 episodes ago you guys were on episode 34. I believe you joined us to talk about reach in your own podcast. Was that that long ago? When is? I don't know when that was that feels. Oh. 18I. Don't know. I'm going to hazard a guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so this part of this part of the podcast is very first bit is I guess we're going to talk about what we've learned along
the way. So 100 episodes later from those early days of using our iPhones to record, if you go listen to Episode 1, you'll know what I mean through 2, you know, today recording on the video of the world is that going from, it's not going black and white to colour, it's going from radio to full. Well, it's not quite 4K. We're not, we're not, we're a bit cheap. We're not paying for the 4K mode. We're paying for 720P unless anybody wants to sponsor us and
then we'll upgrade. So it's all about reflecting, I guess on what, on what we've done in terms of moving through that podcast journey. But you know, after you guys started your own podcast along the way as well. So we're we keen to hear what you guys have done. Do you want to Craig, do you want to introduce your podcast quickly? So anyone who hasn't listened. We are getting to Games on Air, a podcast about board games and the people who play them. Nice.
Well said by rent shuffle and roll. If you use the code GI TG50 you're going to give rental with rent shuffle and roll anyway. Say advertise, you said introduce. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah, basically I think it was spawned out of. We would just play board games for sit after we've played a board game and just talk about
it, talk about it for ages. And or we just sit there and be like this game's this, that, that, that, that, that and talk about like topics within board games and, and themes and everything. And we're like, why are we just talking about this? Why aren't we just recording it? Because there's so much here someone might want to hear. I think we did it in the car as well, like we would go on a long journey and then have a big discussion about certain.
Like, yeah, visit my mum in London and just drive for two hours and just start talking about different games and different things. And it just kind of led into get into Games on Air, which is essentially just a US just rambling on about games, occasionally having guests on to talk about games. And like the big UK board game Proto Hype, which has all the prototype games coming to Kickstarter. And we've managed to meet up with quite a few of them and build up quite a bit of a
relationship with them. So we get a lot of those those guys before their Kickstarter launches to have like little chats. Yeah, it's been really good. And it is just that we have regular segments, like silly little segments. And. And as everyone who listens knows, Becky plans everything. I plan nothing. And. It's really annoying. Fly by the seat in my. Pants annoying. It's good fun though.
I've I've written down in terms of the highlights that we generally don't do scripts either, which generally means it's it's a little bit it is. We fly by the seat of our plan. Pants yeah, generally. But we we have got better and we do write out maybe four or five bullet points just to keep PJ on track. I think that's important.
It is important to kind of have something like we're going to start with this we're going to do because we'll always do our like we were generally doing like what's hit our table this week so we can talk about the games that we've played. Then we'll either have like a topic or a subject or a guest, I guess. And then we'll end with like a board game menu and then sort of end the in the podcast there.
But I used to plan it to the point at which, like, I would write down the publishers and the artists and all of this, and then you would just rock up and I'd be like have lists and lists and lists. Yeah, you can tell what Becky's going on. She'll she'll start saying this game designed by this, with this amazing art by this person, this person. And I'm like, you played seven wonders. I don't bother.
We've I often I'm sitting here with my phone or another tab open on board game geek doing the same but doing it live trying to read and but which of course on when you're recording just onto audio. No one knows but right here I here I'm yeah there's no hiding now yes I start wondering over here it's looking elsewhere. What about what about like technical stuff? Like I mean, from our we started off on on a phone recording using pods bean.
I think it was PJ, wasn't it? That's that where we started Dean pod Bean using their mobile app. And then we quite quickly realized that the auto quality wasn't right. And then we ended up we bought mics and we bought headphones, which has definitely helped us. How about you guys? Well, did you start with did you we pros for the start? We've always had this snowball thing. But if they do want to sponsor either podcast, but yeah, the the Blue, the snowball was quite
fine. It picks us both up. All right. It works well. Yeah, it's quite nice. But we've always had that. We've never really, we started delving into video. So we've got like AII had an old webcam that's better than the ones on the laptop kind of thing, but we never really the microphone we sorted out but. We just have to work out how close I have to sit to the microphone because you're much louder. Than one of us is a lot louder than the other and that's that's the thing.
So sometimes I do listen back and I'll hear me suddenly go and like and. I'm like like a mouse in the background. Yeah, we've spoke to one of our friends down who lives down the road. Dale, he was listening once and I shouted his name once on an episode just randomly and he was like, I was driving, thank you. I almost crashed the car. We have got, we definitely have episodes when I'm sitting there going like PJ's really loud. It's come back a little bit further away and I, we'll have
to get really close. Yes, I think we've generally worked out now that because yeah, there's this, yeah, particularly not in the same room. Trying to get the balance right is quite tricky. That is the most difficult, that is the probably the single greatest challenge is for us doing this six hours apart. You know, that's been our biggest challenge, I think, whereas you guys are sitting right next to each other. Yeah. Episode 75 where we did it live
sitting next to each other. I kind of wish it was video because that was, I think that was one of our SO. See my highlight bit for later the the fact that we actually sat together and recorded it, it does make podcasting a lot, lot easier when you've just you're losing that connection just because of of the time difference and you guys. So we moved to River Riverside hosting wise, I don't know when now, maybe 50 episodes ago. Was it 50?
Maybe I have to go check because we lost a lot of stats along the way because we moved from Poplene. To. Yeah, to Riverside, but that Riverside got bought by Spotify or maybe even then had been. And then over the last maybe two months the features have just grown and grown on that site. So from using it for video editing, audio editing, some of the features like on the screen, stay with names, he's all relatively new. Do you guys use much of Riverside?
We should be advertised but sponsoring us as well, shouldn't they? Yeah. Absolutely. We've always used we've I think because we've spoke and I was wondering what you guys used and stuff like that just because of the interesting parts of it. And we use Riverside, we use Riverside and we use Pod Bean. We use the both, obviously Pod Bean to put it up on the platform and then Riverside to do the recording. So it would be interesting to choose do different things.
I think sometimes it's having it on one and then downloading it and then moving it to another one to put it up. And especially with Google Podcasts changing over to YouTube Podcasts. Yeah. That's kind of messed up a little bit of the kind of reach, I think, which has been a bit of a a thing that we've had to adapt to and change. I know nothing of this side, I just. Do the podcast it took a worse and while to get it onto Apple as well. That took like long. They had to verify.
That took like a month, yeah. You got to put codes in and verify. And yeah, that one, that one is much more tricky. From from an actual recording side of things, we've found that Riverside is pretty straightforward. It's a nice and easy system to use, which is good for me because the easier the better really. Just give me something simple. I think now on Riverside you can just send it straight to Spotify. I mean that's that. It generally is relatively encased in one platform now.
So if you're thinking about a podcast, consider Riverside for all your podcast leads. I think if I looked for it I'd even find some audio that says Riverside FM, but I'll have to find that for later, yeah. Just in case they're looking for, we're looking for sponsorship. Hey, you guys want to come on here Riverside podcast. Riverside FM and then I think the last bit I've got is I guess
we've got holidays. So I've been sick, we've we've missed episodes because, you know, we've both been in different places. Do you guys always recall together? Yeah, yeah. We, we tried to do it every week, but we found that with work schedules and bits and pieces, it's not always possible. So now I think we've we tried to keep to at least every fortnight, yeah. Because. Because we don't like, I salute you for being able to stick it to half an hour.
We do not we, we just go and it'll end, promise. But when I don't know my our titles really should be how long a road trip you need to take. Yeah. That's quite a good idea. It's like, yeah, yeah. How long is your workout? Is it 30 minutes, 3540 minutes? One hour plus. Because I think the first episode we were like an hour's good. And then I think we had an episode with John Gracie and
that was like 2 hours. And it was like, OK, so some of the them do go on and it depends on the subject because we can just like you'll probably find that you could talk about the subject for days, but you're like very like, yeah, we can. Let's move on. Whereas we'll just. Go yeah, let's talk. We're gonna talk. So because our podcast is longer, I think it works every other week doesn't matter as much because then it's like, OK, you've listened to half of it that week.
You can listen to the other half next week or however you want to listen to it. For me, it's like therapy. So you have to get everything off your chest. Yeah. And then what? Then you can. Stop. I love it. Yeah, we played Catan. Let's not go there. Because I think, I think we've, we, we were 30 minutes pretty good for a good. Really good. Maybe 50 episodes or so, and then we've kind of got to 45. This is going to be about an hour and a half, I think. This episode we have to.
Keep it to under. Yeah, yeah, but we go back to where me and PJ first met and we had when I was in Instagram lives back in COVID lockdown days. I think my longest episode was three hours. I mean, who watches on Instagram live for three hours, maybe 3 1/2. I mean, we did just talk. What else was there to do apart from Yeah, from I was there. Yeah. So, so yeah, I can see how you can, you can just start chatting.
Pete, anything from you on? I just want to, I want to say about that original Instagram Live, which is coming up November 1st is when that aired. Wow, you remembered it so. I do, and so you're our friendship, life changing, life changing. So our friendship would have started. That was 2021, November 1st, so three years real soon. So I'm sitting here talking to you on Instagram Live. Katie, my wife is sitting on the couch there and I'm looking for visual cues from her that I need
to shut up and cut it off. And if she says I can keep going. So I blew your your your goal out of if I remember everyone's like, can I be longer? Like, can you go longer than the previous one? And I think after me, you kind of abandoned that. Like no one can talk longer than PJ. That's not true. I. Think he broke me. I thought, I can't ever do this again. I I mean, November would have been because I kind of kind of ranted about to December,
January, February next year. I think, yeah, OK, it's good. I broke you. I broke you so much that we're on episode 101. We're launching, we're launching our YouTube channel, right? Like that's how broken you are. Oh good point. Make sure you like and subscribe yes like and subscribe for more content every week or maybe 2 if we go like for an hour and a half, you know. Can I ask you A? Question. Yes, please do. So how do you find having guests
on your podcast? Because we've had some really great guests and then we've had some not so great guests. And it's hard to like manage the people on the podcast sometimes, I think, and like trying because we know people personally, but then trying to get across on a podcast is actually quite a difficult thing to do. How do you find managing that? Who's getting first? Human to take. This. I'll take it. We might both take it. Yeah, go ahead. Let's see whether I'm going to say one bit.
I think you'll do the other. OK. So I think those episodes do become a bit more scripted. So I guess it's a, we do similar things when I used to do the lives, which is supposed to be relaxed. It's chilled, like it is just a conversation. And if we mess up, we cut and edit and no one's going to know. So looking through, I've got a list. I mean, we've got we've had a mixture of everyone from like Instagram people to friends of PJS. You've had some friends from the states who've had it on.
And then more recently, I think we found that when it was me and PJ and another guest, sometimes it's that's too many or guess was definitely too much as if we have 4 of you on the screen. So we actually found sometimes it was better with PJ on his own with a guest just for the for the dialogue. Yeah. And two of us trying, it's like 3's a crowd sometimes we found other. What you thought PJ to that? So I don't agree with anything you just said. Is this controversial?
Episode 100 and the final episode of. That is the end, yeah. OK, so the reality is that 3 is the perfect number. You don't. And Gareth and I learned this because we had like two or three episodes where we had more than three people on. That doesn't work at all. But 3 is OK for the flow. It works if it's Gareth and I and one guest, or if it's myself and two guests. Or yes, that is you are correct. That is what I meant. It could be had two people on
the show what I'm. Hearing here is there's four people here. No, no, no. But you're 1, but you're together. You're together. It's when you had, yes, when PJ had Hannah and we had Alex, that was better with two guests. Yeah, 33 did because that that is correct. What? You want 3 voices if you get more and they've done a lot of research, numerology and and and all that about how the number three works in all kind of settings other than an interview.
I also in my head, when I have a guest on, I kind of take off my board gamer hat. And we all know I've got a lot of hats, most of which I purchased while I was in England. I put on my my journalist hat. I get, you know, like my persona changes when we have a guest on depending also depending on the guest, if it's a designer or someone from the industry, I definitely become a journalist and I'm like, I'm going to ask questions and I'm going to keep
this going and, and moving. But I also am really skilled at improvisation. So I understand the importance of keeping the conversation going and allowing for your guest to look good. And I took some theater classes when I was an undergrad at LSU, and one of the rules was to make sure your partner looks good #1 always be seen #2 make sure your partner looks good. So I always want to make sure I'm heard. Now I'm seen because we're on video, but make sure I was hired, make sure my partner
looked good. And that's always governed me whenever I'm in conversation, so. I think it's just more difficult than it looks like you see people doing podcasts and videos and you think, Oh yeah, that's easier just having a chat. But I think it's actually like there is a skill to it and getting the best out of your guests. That's that's something that. Absolutely right. I think that's why there's, when Gareth and I started this project, we're like, let's do a
podcast. Like because we talked about Gareth approached me, he wanted to do something, but we didn't know what that was. And it ended up being a podcast and doing research. There's like, what is it, Gareth? There's 2000 different board game podcasts. There's loads. I mean, it's even. There's so many. Yeah, I mean. And, and most of them have like 5-6 episodes and they fell apart because this is difficult work.
Yeah. So I don't know if anything I just said helped you, but that's what I do when I'm talking to a guest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also want to clarify that we didn't have bad guests. Just. Terrible. No, I meant that it's difficult to manage the medium between people and and that what you said about getting the best out of people, I think we're still working on that because that's actually quite tricky. Yeah, I think, I think our first guest was Gozier. Yep, Episode 20.
So 27 episodes into we had the first guests on the show and then we had a right run of them 32333435 and then we had a massive break to 69 when we met Nick on the show and that was chaos so. We we did some guests and then or had some guests did some guests and then we actually missed just talking to each other. We were like, we want to get back to just talking with each
other. Yeah. It's a nice blend and I think we, I think it got to a point where there was a lot of like convention and a lot of Kickstarter things and a lot of our guests became like Huffman Moore and people that were putting their games out there. We we miss talking. But yeah, just just be able to talk about board games because sometimes people want to listen to about board games. They don't want to listen to about one specific game or subject, I guess, Yeah.
What's your most popular episodes? What stuff do you enjoy talking about the most? I like, I think our most, our most popular was like some of our earlier ones, definitely, but our I, I enjoyed the, when we've had more of a subject that we've lent into. So when we talked about like our, our stats and stuff like that, that's always a fun one. What we're aiming to do in the new year. That was a good one.
Conventions, conventions are always fun and there's so much to talk about and there's a lot that people want to listen to. I think our UKGE an air con episodes our air con episode probably was the most viewed only because. Only Picard humble brag. I got a voice memo from Rodney Smith after the episode. So that's why that one's that's got a topic for me. But yeah, like UKGE episodes, they're always they're always good fun.
I I do enjoy having guests. I enjoy talking about like picking their brains and like working out. And we're always like, we always like to dig in and be like. And so this is your game that you're bringing out. OK, that's great. What else are you playing? Like what are you inside? Yeah, that's the stuff I enjoy. It's been talking to designers about what else do they play and then I guess find the screen of that. Well, they actually up to. Yeah.
And. What we do like fun, like quick fire questions and that and we get our guests to always do a menu. So they'll always come back with to us with so they have stuff that we can really dive into because it's it's fun to talk about the game and try. And essentially we're selling a game. We're selling that game on Kickstarter, which is it's all an ad essentially, But it's nice to also get that personal the human side of of it and to see the the human elements.
So, I mean, I don't, I don't think there's a particular episode that I've said is my favorite of all. My favorite was the John Grace, Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, that was a lot of fun. But that's because that went on for like 5 hours. I am. I am trying not to take. I'm trying not to take that personally, speaking as a former guest. Becky will do that because she can't take turns. That's the problem you see,
She's always. Because I didn't know anything about John Gacy before we did the podcast and then I asked loads of questions to find out stuff about him and his wife and where they will start. And it was truly interesting to me. So I was like really passionate about. So you're saying that PJ's boring and not interesting I. Can't win here. I just stop. I just no. I think, I think the conversations that the four of us, because my wife was with me when we stayed with you, we had
really great conversation. I kind of wish we would have recorded that, right. Yeah, it was really good conversation. But you know, that's OK. It was boring. I always find with with, I always find with podcasts. We've we finish, we'll stop the record button and then go, why didn't we say that quick set back up this record again, like define that as well.
But I find that listening to you guys sometimes, like you'll, you'll ask a question on the podcast and I'll be like, oh, I've got so much of an opinion on that. I really want to just let you know my opinion, but you've already recorded it. I don't need to say my opinion anymore because. Write it in comments in the.
Comments. Sometimes we stop recording and then we carry on. Particularly got guests on and sometimes we talk for another hour with a guest which we should have just recorded, you know, but it's because we get onto other topics and we get into stuff that, you know, maybe not so board game related. The dialogue is really good.
I think that I think that Gareth and I have learned that that's the real meat that interests everyone, including ourselves, and we let the let that conversation go more than just one big advertisement on the game that they're about to launch on Kickstarter. I'm thinking about, and I'm sure you are too, is when we, we, we interviewed Matt and Zara from Kvango because we did, we talked with them for like another hour.
And I think at one point there was a moment where you made me re, we re recorded a question I had. And then, and then there's some magical editing by my partner Gareth. Thanks. Yeah, No one knew this. I can't remember what it was it was about. I think it's about Botswana, wasn't it? And the. I don't think so. Was it? About the the the where the river flows or something else? It had it had to do with the river delta because Louisiana is a major river delta. Yeah, something along that.
Yeah, yeah. Something like that, yeah. OK, so yeah, anything else about podcasts or should we let our guests go? I don't have anything else. Do you have any more advertising Create to do a quick plug before you know. Make sure everyone's got the name of your podcast. So. No. You're listening to this episode in 2025. I've heard that there's a very good T-shirt manufacturer called Shirts and Merch that you should basically be checking out specifically in 2025.
So I'll come back to that in a few months. Future Self. Public. Public Publishing. Yep, I love it. That's great. Well, the. Scoop. That's it. Yeah, that's the SO scoop. I'm hosting a giveaway for a board Game 2 Maple to Maple's hearts at the moment, close to their hearts before the Obsession expansion with the metal coins. So if you're heading over to my Boordtober 2024 extravaganza over on Instagram and you enter that, if you comment Maple to Maple in the comments, I will
give you 5 extra. And wow. They're going to cut. That you're. Going. To cut that out, yeah. Leave that in. Well, leave it in, in because we have a special guest shortly all about obsession, which I think, I think we've worked out. We've talked about obsession in 90% of our episodes. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm glad you have product placed obsession. Thank you. In the center of the screen. I mean, who would have known? That's exactly, Yeah, it's actually spot on.
So Craig and Becky, thank you for joining the show. Thank you for celebrating episode 100. Congratulations again. Thank you very much and look forward to hearing more from getting to Games on Air. Thank you. So I guess, PJ, that was a great summary of our podcast journey and chatting to Craig and Becky about their journey was pretty satisfying. It's good to see two other fellow podcasters with some of the similar thoughts and challenges that we have now.
I can see behind you obsession. I mean, I mean, I'm the only one with obsession not behind me and obsession was behind Becky and Craig. So it was. So we tried, I tried to get you on a call over the last couple of weeks to do a little bit of a surprise. But yeah, you had work. And like we mentioned earlier, we had, we had a bit of a challenge on time scales. So I decided to just go and chat to Dan Halligan myself.
What? I know, I know, and it was supposed to be a 15 minute chat, but if you've met Dan and we've had Dan on the show back in 57, so I decided to catch up with Dan as a special section. So we're going to cut to it. So it's 35 minutes. So we're going to play it here. If you're into Obsession, then there's some, there's an update about hurricanes and pirates and current shipping challenges.
We cover Parlour, which is that if he spoke to us previously, it's a trick taking game based in the Obsession theme. There's some artwork shared. So Dan shares his screen, I think really privileged to see some art. And then there's a couple of I guess not Kickstart Kickstarter editions for Obsession 1 is an all combined playmat that Dan talks about and a combined rulebook, which again. Nice. We were talking.
We were talking about like when we had Cajun Con and then someone said come teach obsession and I came over and I was like, I haven't played this for like a few months and there's three different rule books and people put everything in having the combined rule book. You just sound like a it's like a piece of art. Anyway, here is Dan Halligan, designer obsession, the most spoken about board game on this podcast of 90% of the time.
Do enjoy. So welcome to Episode 100, a kind of secret special interview with one of our most talked about games designers, Dan Halligan. So welcome Dan to the show. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it. And PJ kind of knows I was talking to somebody but didn't quite know what I was up to. But as we have talked about Obsession, I reckon in 90% of the episodes from everything from our favorite games to we spoke to you just about a year ago when you launched the
character's expansion. We have segwayed Obsession into Roland Writes. We've talked about it from from a Nemesis perspective right through to, you know, the favorite games that we play all the time. I thought it'd be a good chance to catch up after a year on how the character expansion has gone for Obsession, which I know is in the middle of shipping. And then we can spend a little bit of time talking about maybe some new stuff and what you get from podcasts. Yeah.
How so? How year on you funded and you're in the middle of shipping. How are things in the Obsession world of logistics and fulfilment? Well, hurricanes are plaguing me
right now. So hurricanes and pirates, because my two biggest areas where I'm shipping containers of games and coins is obviously Europe and the Americas, mostly North America. And because of the dangers of going through the Suez Canal, all those ships coming from China are going around the Cape of Good Hope and taking the long way. So when I had games arriving in Australia in late August, early September, I get your shipment to the UK arriving mid-october because of the long trip.
So that's pain point #1 pain point #2 is that my stuff has to go through the Panama Canal, which has got some real logistic problems coming to the Americas to get to my Florida warehouse where Quartermaster Logistics does my US fulfillment, where I have 5000 backers. And they, they just had a hurricane go through Hurricane Helene. And now they have a Hurricane Milton just a couple of weeks later, which tells me HIJKL there were 4 tropical storms in
between the two. Hurricanes in two weeks. So these ships are out there bouncing around and and I expect about a two week delay, maybe a little longer and we'll probably be shipping or fulfilling in Europe, in the US simultaneously in 3rd to four week, 4th week of October. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's those things you just can't. Well, I know they're predicting the storm, but there's no it's out of your control. I mean, it's, I mean, just watching it now, you know, there's A to see impact is
incredible. And I've seen people in the in Asia and Australia starting to receive their coins and the games and there's lots of positive comments coming in. So yeah, I guess UK will see it maybe mid November like you say over. Two or three weeks. Maybe end of October. UK is going to get it first because Spiral Galaxy is my European. That's great fulfilment, yeah. They will drop right to the UK and then they'll they'll hit Europe syrup.
You're sorry European folks, but the further away you are from your fulfilment partner, the longer. It's the longer it takes. Yeah. So I think you'll get them in October. Probably not. That's not long. I cannot wait to see it. And positive news, any other challenges since we spoke to a year ago in terms of taking that project from, I guess the Kickstarter to now, apart from fulfillment, has it all gone smooth? I moved after 35 years in in Ohio.
I moved to Utah in relatively remote location of Utah where you know, I couldn't, I couldn't ship. I don't know if you have things called pods. They're basically you can be moving and you can fill up like 1/2 of a semi trailer. Yeah. Container and they'll take it to wherever you're going. I couldn't do that because I'm in a remoter area, so I had to drive out twice with stuff while I was doing the art and the fulfilment and the the graphic design for characters and trying
to develop the cooperative mode. I was doing that out of my garage in Ohio because I was renovating my house for sale and then I was periodically driving 2200 miles to Utah, flying back, catching up on e-mail. So those were logistic problems, but they, I, I surmounted those. I got most of it done in Ohio before I officially moved to Utah and but otherwise I was, I'm real pleased. One of the what I really like.
I think designers tend to want to go to deluxe editions, you know, I, I, I make a great game, luckily. And then why not turn it into some monster box? I got foundations of Rome. Yes, to make. For my Kickstarter, the box is a cube that's a 12 by 12 by 12 cube. And I actually have pivoted from thinking that way to trying to think small.
So the characters, I made it really tightly packed and small and, and chose not to do punch boards, which I think would add too many tiles and dilute the mechanics of the market that works today. And I'm sort of leaning in that direction because I've got a lot of big games. I just can't get the, I can't get the gumption up to get on the table and start to dig through everything that's in there. I think, I think I I'm going smaller is my thinking. But anyway.
Yeah, about everything behind me. This, this is my office spare room. Behind me is all the big boxes because they take so much space. Now that I've moved, I've moved everything. Everything behind me is, you know, Scythe Dwellings, Tangard and Wingspan, they're all the big boxes. They take up so much space. I've made its own in area, but they are just, they are full of stuff that I don't really need.
So small boxes is it's all good news and is I guess with the end of that coming, this fulfillment, what's next for both obsession or for you as a designer? So with Obsession, I think characters is the last significant piece as it relates to gameplay. Yeah. Because I think keep to keep adding bloat can make it a challenge to get to the table. And so I think what's needed, I think Obsession needs to be
supported. But I think what's needed is that if you haven't played Obsession in six months and you got some friends coming over. If you've got good memories, warm memories of having played it with other groups back in the day. And now you go to your Cadillacs and you look and you've got five boxes there. Or even if you fit everything into the one box, which I tried to make happen, you got five rule books in there and you've got to sit down in order to reintegrate the expansions in
your head to the base game. You've got five rule books to refresh your memory on and where do you look? So I think the absolute fundamental and the people who have those expansions are the ones that are communicating this to me is a universal rule book, is one rule book very carefully cross referenced and tabbed so that if you have successfully fitted every fit everything into my main box, yeah, you'll have one rule book. You'll be able to pull the parts
out and they'll be one game. They won't be five games be one game. And I've reached out to someone who knows Shakespeare's adage, which is brevity is the soul of wit, which is never been in my vocabulary, and he's going to make sure that universal rule book is just the rules. OK if. You want thematics, you can keep your glossary. And I'm debating on whether I wanted to, you know, to put like a glossary in the back of that universal rule book. I don't think so because I don't
want to lift the lid. So I'm thinking if you just keep the glossary, you just want to know the rules and be able to find it quick. You know, you pull out a promotional tile for the, for example, the still room, which allows you to double use a servant. I want you to be able to go to that book and go promotional tiles, alphabetized still room. This is what I do right now.
You got to go on an almost in a game of its own, a quest into my box to find that rule and I don't want that to happen because it might not get to the table. Yeah, we had PJ visit us back in March, April time, and we had two tables. We had a little convention, two teams were playing an obsession and they said Gareth, Gareth come over and I was like, OK, there's five rule books, right. Let's let's just go back to basics.
But again, it's just remembering it, even though we play a lot, a universal rule book, like you say, well structured in those tabs. If you can go to a tile reference, you don't need the glossary as much as you say it's yeah, it would be a huge benefit. And in addition. And then I think a component aspect and what I hope to do in maybe is late spring, early summer Kickstarter is the rule book. But one thing I'm going to do is that rule book will be available
online as APDF free of charge. I'm I'm if if I know our hobby, most people are going to want the physical. Rule book, Yeah, I don't. Want to make people pay for in a Kickstarter a rule book that I should be providing already, right? Yeah, so. That that'll be available, but the the spiral bound would be one part of that Kickstarter. The other is now you've got a bunch of boards, you got a sideboard, you got the main
board, you got the round track. And so I want to make a neoprene playmat that incorporates all the boards. Now this would violate getting everything in the box because you should roll up a neoprene playmat when you store it. But I, I can give a separate tube. And what that would do is that would allow you to just layout.
And I'm my artist who is working with me on a new game that's also set in Victorian England. He's going to be commissioned to integrate Alderley Hall, where the Fairchilds are with rural Darby, not Derbyshire, but actually outside the city of Darby is where the characters expansion characters reside, The Constable, the Reverend and the Dowager, just just outside the city. And actually Higbee's where you get the sloppy secondhand servants, they're in Darby.
There's no respectable servants are in Darby anyway. So he's going to integrate the whole thing. So it's going to go from Alderley Hall through pastoral scenes over to the edges of of Industrial Revolution. Darby peeking on the one end with and make it a nice visual look but give you only one thing you have to lay out and. Yeah. And when and when's that? That's next year. I'd like to do those too, yeah, because one thing I can do with those, I can have those done
when I kick start. It's for immediate fulfilment. Or. Basically, I can hit production button. Yeah. The second I know my number, you know, X people backed it. I do X * 2 for retail. I hit my button and I, I, I there'll be no delay. Won't be like a year delay. Yeah, it'll be like a. 4. Months delay. Yeah, because I remember Jeremy Segma did a spiral bound one for Scythe similar. They combined it all and that
was really nice. And that just sticks inside the box, so. I just ordered that last week when we started our project. I haven't gotten it, but I, I, Jamie, I'm not going to plagiarize anything, but hey. It's a good reference. Stand on the shoulders of giants. I don't need to reinvent everything, but I do have, I do, I do appreciate what he what he's done with that I want to get a look at. Yeah, it'd be very good. So, so Dan, what's coming up
next? So you've done sort of rule references and some in some more, I guess additional parts to obsession in terms of that playmap. What else have you got in the works? So I think it's really important that I, I get another game out. You know, it's like, I don't know if you know the band Uriah Heap. He's like a one hit wonder hit stealing when I should have been dying. Now I said that once to a Uriah Heap fan and they got all
they're not a one hit wondering. My point is, is that I, I, I've been blessed by obsession. I, I couldn't be happier. I'm always amazed at its success because it was such a humble thing that I, I was making all the mistakes about. But I, I just have other, I have other game ideas.
And, you know, people say, hey, make pride prejudice and zombies, make a zombie obsession or hey, you know, do do this, make a legacy obsession, which I think I one day, one day might do, you know, But right now I've got a couple of games and my first game was supposed to be a game, a space game. And it's very different than anything that's out there.
But I I think I would be foolish to not lean into the people who are enjoying the very atypical theme because the other game is still set in Victorian England, but it's not a euro, it's predominantly a trick taking game. OK. Yes. And my thought was Obsession did break down a lot of barriers.
There's a lot of people who are not gamers who are drawn by the theme, who've gotten into Obsession and realized that they can handle a level of heavy crunch that you find in Obsession. And but there's still a lot of people who found that a little bit of a daunting experience. And what I want is I want something lighter And the reason trick taking appeals to me besides, I really like trick
taking games. Played a ton of P knuckle growing up. I played euchre badly growing up. I just never was good at euchre. I don't want people be playing and when I do a card and they and everybody throw their cards and I go, what the hell you doing? They go, well done. He's got this Bower and this and I got. But I do love trick taking games and so did Victorians. Victorians. Had endless trick taking games.
They had whis they had casino they had I'm reading actually pride and Prejudice now and they referenced 2 new ones for me that I had. Was it commerce? Anyway they always in the parlor would play trick taking games. So my upcoming game is called Parlor and it is a trick taking game, but it really diverts, departs at that point from just the standard accumulate 1 tricks with a partner type thing, which
is the most common. And it you're, you're basically going to be a State Building, but you're going to acquire the improvements to your state via winning a trick. I think Brian Boru is a great game. I don't know if you've had a chance to play it. It's pure Sylvester, I believe. I would have to check that. And I actually had parlor and development before I played this
game. But he and I were like on the same wavelength because he's using trick taking to get Euro type resources from winning a trick. And then he does some area control in the UK and I'm not, I'm not doing area control, but what I am doing is his state construction. OK. So one of the things I really wanted to do because Obsession was successful, was to add art. A lot of people have said about Obsession, you know, real nice flow, love building up my state.
I'd like, I'd like to see some art on those like playing Race for the Galaxy or playing other types of games where I can see what I'm talking about. And quite honestly, when I was a rookie, I couldn't afford the art. And because my family has artists in it, my dad was an accomplished artist. I have a policy where I'm, I'm not going to use AI. I'm, I'm supporting artists and I with this obsession, obsession, success. I found a an artist in Warsaw, Poland named Janet Lipinski
who's brilliant. And so in parlor, when I talk about building up your estate through trick take trick taking those, those cards are going to have art on them. And I could show you a little bit of that art to give you sort of a sneak. If you could, that would be. That'd be amazing. Yeah, please do. Let me let me see if I can operate technology here. You should be able to share. The screen share the screen. So here's an example of the stateroom.
So we have a tile, it's a level 6 prestige tile called a stateroom. And a stateroom was typically where you would have a a state dinner is where that term comes from in politics. We're going to have a state dinner. And so that's the piece of art that's been created. And what I would do is I would construct a very bad reference for my, for my brilliant artist, Janik. And he would then generate prototypes. And I would say things like, well, we got to remove the adder.
He would have a beautiful room with no candles. And I said, well, we don't have any overhead lighting. Yeah, yeah, we need lights. You need candles. So this is what a Candelabra looks like, and I would explain it to him. So it's a collaborative project and he generates where we get to a final piece like this, where when you're bidding for the stateroom, you're looking at this particular tile, if you will, or card.
It's actually going to be cards and you can see what you're bidding on. And that adds to the thematic flavor because nothing will have the thematic coherence of obsession as far as the reputation governing who will be seen with you and where you can have the courage to host a big party and whether your servants are actually available and you've built up your domestic staff. That's going to be obsessions calling card.
Yeah, this one is going to lean into visuals because there's no way you can make a a trick take taking process. Thematic don't make any sense. But I'm sitting here, yeah, I'm sitting here now thinking, what are those conversations sat behind that, You know, around that table there's people chatting, chatting away. Right. And I'm visualizing in my heads, you know what they're chatting about. They've come from an event I've
held an obsession. They're now sat around that table and what the what's the gossip or the the latest news coming out of the out of the family or friends? Exactly you. Know that I basically you are my unpaid assistant as a gamer because you've got to fill in the blanks here. I hope to fill in the blank like this. Here is the saloon and a lot of people think it's supposed to be salon and the salons in the West where people are shooting at each other and drinking shots.
But no, the saloon originated in in, in, in Manor houses in England. And this is a generally a long room where you can have bigger parties. And all this research, which I did research the original rooms, but now I got a research down to what's a standing Candelabra look like, right? I got to have that or some of the other things. How what's the posture of a servant that's offering, you know, you might say offering a drink. Well, they didn't serve
cocktails in 1862, right? That that's not the way it worked. Even though I have a guy there with I'm I'm breaking my own rule because it looks like he's serving drinks. But to give you some other looks, it would even get to something like the private study where you want to capture what it looks like for.
It's lovely. Yeah, the the the gentleman of the house in their consulting plans it you know, what are my tenant rents coming in and my business manager is going to show up who handles the details and you can get into the actual sports that are going on like I had to research. What does cricket have? You got cricket. You have got a cricket one. Yeah, let's have a. Look, what does cricket look like back then? Well, they wore top hats. That is. Brilliant. I love the color the.
Officials, the officials have the white top hats and then they have Grays versus the blacks. And they tried to, they wore white. They teach. You me some history now as well. I didn't know that. Well, I, I don't know, I mean, I'm all, I'm a book learner. I'm a book learner. I I had done this one and I had a gent from Yorkshire I think who said you would have the 3rd post in the wicket by 1862, I said. Thank you. Yeah, that's what you need.
Yeah, a few exits. That's what you need and and there's some which I I just love probably wouldn't fly today as being a favorite, but you know when you get to the atmosphere of like a a smoking room my. Favorite. Yeah. It's just it just jumps out of the screen. Actually, that's not even my favorite. I have an earlier rendition I liked a little better. Was it that one? Yeah, I like that one even a little better. We had something in the foreground.
And what he does is he he takes and he creates layers out of his artwork that is painting, and he digitizes it. So you can see the chair here. And I had him remove the chair and this one because I wanted to see what it would look like if it opened it up. So I don't want to go too deep on this, but this is a little bit of a passion project, and my hope is somehow to get it into obsession.
I don't know how to do that because the tiles are so small, but I'm thinking about it. But that's going to be a futures project. Parlor is going to have this art and it's going to be about a quick game where you can build an estate in 45 minutes because you're playing a trick taking game and. See the yeah, the link between the, I guess the obsession of the game and then the trick
taking piece and the artwork. And I guess having the similar experience of bringing all that experience on the obsession game without all that artwork into the into trick taking piece. And I'm going to show you one other thing because there's a method to my madness. Not that I'm trying to, you know, lure people into obsession the game from Parlor the game. But I'm using the same assets. I'm using the same
personalities, right? Well, for example, if you get to my give me one second here, it won't be long. I'm going to get to my Gentry cards. So the same cards are going to be used, but they're going to be constructed differently. This is a screenshot. So these are the same characters with the same flavour text that you have in Obsession. So I want you to get to know these people because you might be inclined when you get to Obsession to find some familiarity.
But you'll see we've lost certain things, which is we've lost we've got the prestige rating, which is actually how the trick the suits are constructed. But now you've got the addition of these icons and you can see a horse and an architectural symbol, and it reflects the interest of the character based upon their flavour text. And if you play that trick, that card into a trick where the room actually is about architecture or about ride to hide.
You. Get you get it, You get a coin, which is a victory point and it's the Victorian coins that I've made in the characters expansion. So there's there's a lot of synergy between the two because I didn't want to run away from the affection for obsession in my next game, but I wanted it to be a new game. So we we always introduce the characters as well. So it's there's some that we've all become fondly attached to,
to the names. So the fact that there's a crossover and those same characters will appear in Parlor, that's a really nice touch. Yes. And then we'll go to the space. It won't be obsession in space, it'll be something totally different. I'll do that probably in 2026. Wow, that is a lot. Yeah. Thank you for sharing those images and a piece of background. It's it's yeah. And that's Q1 next year or when do you think that would? Be and that would be a year from now.
A year from now, so can. Be a year from. Now, about a year from now, yeah. I, I, I'm re engaging my play testing and we're going to see if it goes hopefully like I think it goes then then I can move pretty quickly because I have all the assets and we just need to do that. But the last play testing round, they said it was a little thin on content.
So adding the synergy of the interests of the characters with the type of rooms that they're visiting in the trick seem to be the way to sort of elevate Trick taking to almost a little bit of a Euro flavour. Yeah, and bring the two together. Tastic, I can't wait, well, can't wait to see and see and hear more about that wrap up then, as this is a bit of a celebration of 100 episodes. What do you did you listen to podcasts? Do you have time for podcasts in your life?
I do situationally. I I'm I'm my only employee and my boss is a jerk so he doesn't give me a lot of. Time. No time for breaks yet. But I do situationally when I hear about things or if I get recorded, I want to make sure I didn't was in a total disaster. But sometimes I have. You know, one of the reasons I collect, I have 500 games is because when I hear of an interesting mechanic, I've got a business write off, I just grab the game, come in. That's why I play it.
So everybody, you, you can do it, you can do it. So what were we talking about? So when there's the game that's particularly interesting to me because it's helping my thought processes. There's nothing new under the sun and there's great designers that they go on a you know, you take a look at Arc Nova, that's really standing on the shoulders of a lot of different games. Yeah, yeah. That doesn't mean that that's not to that's not a pride. Yeah, to credit to that to, to that gentleman.
So, so and for that reason, I will look at podcasts and, and I will tell you for a, for a small publisher, podcasts are critical. I can go back and point out and, and I think you guys had a role as well. Point out people who got on obsession early and the podcasters have their loyal followings and those people.
I I just listened to, for example, a podcast from three minute board games on his top 100 games and I'm honored that he has me. I think at 8. I think he does that for his wife who loves obsession. Just kidding, Jay. But anyway, 88 games went into my into my Amazon basket watching that because I saw something and I said I I need it. I need it again. I got a little luxury because it's a business write off, Yeah. That's all.
Research what? Podcasts do is that they take, I know what you like and if you say this is amazing, I'm intrigued because we're on the same ground as the starting place. Yeah, that's definitely what we pick up is both smaller publishers see a lot of value from the from the podcast, I guess community. And then, yeah, I often know that if I've talked about certain games, some of my friends or listeners definitely go, well, you've liked this one then.
I like that one. So this game is going to be for me. So the, the, I guess the influence or the, I guess the trust in what people are saying is it's valuable. Right. And there's, sometimes you need to go a little deeper, you know, you're thinking about it because before I could be a little wasteful in acquiring games. If I'm going to spend a chunk of money on a game, I, I'm going to research a little more.
I mean, I, I've always been one to not even read the Kickstarter content, but immediately go to BGG and go to the forums and drop down and go for the videos and see what they say. You know, in order to get a sense of whether I'm going to go ahead and gamble on a, on a crowdfunding project. And what I'm what's been the game of the year for you so far, we've got into October is any games that have new games that have caught what caught your attention.
It's been a year where I've with the move and the Kickstarter and everything that's going on, I've probably only played 30 games, 30 or 40 different games. This. Year which? Is way low but I would have to say I would have to say it's two and they're established games. Before I moved playing Pandemic legacy the the top rated one. Yep. Really convinced me that I got to do a legacy obsession one day. OK, Yeah. It's just so compelling.
You can see the obsession been working with with the story in the back story and you start with nothing and yeah, your. Your family members favours would be blank, yes you know and you would start adding your stickers for your favours but I could never do when they say tear the card up. No, no, no. Yeah, I can't turn the car off at that. Point. I always put them in the box so I keep them underneath. And then too many, yeah. Go ahead. So what? Too many. Bones. OK, simple.
Out of shock, but yes. Yeah, the I have, I have a brother that like cooperative games and and so I was getting a lot of time in with him. I was going to be leaving them in Ohio and we'd see each other less. And we got going on those two cooperative games. Too Many Bones is a brilliant design. I think it has some metas in it that lead to exhausting the difficulty once you get really good. But then there's other ways to make it harder. But then now you start to get into that problem.
I talked with a universal rule book and all those extra boxes and characters and everything and it starts to get a little overwhelming. That is a great example because that's when I do pick up and go how many characters have I got, how many trays, how many different sheets, all the symbologies I'm looking. For the dice. So much Yeah. Yeah, the dice I. Mean even the core rules, yeah, yeah, to get those down.
But. But so anyway that but we played the core plus a couple and just a brilliant design, but it's a level of commitment that I didn't really even bring. I gave them to those, my nephew and my brother, and I see you guys run with that and I've just got the base here if I ever want to pull it out. But there's a lot. Of confidence here and, and I've got a lot on my shelf of shame. So I I'm looking forward to settling down a little bit.
But that that would be the two. OK, amazing both both great choices and I say it's really bound is on my doesn't get played enough list. Just back to it's just so much content. OK? Thank you, Dan, for joining us. My pleasure, it's great to talk. PJ will be, well, PJ is going to hear a lot of content about obsession. I can tease him with all this.
Yeah, I will definitely have you back on the podcast if you'll come back again where you've got some more to share on both the stuff in next year and Obsession legacy, whenever that that is, right? It looks, it looks like we can make it an annual fall. Visit. Yeah, we'll do that. Yeah, that would be amazing. We'd be up against Parlour next year and. Yeah, that'd be fantastic. I always love to get the word out in the UK since I've never been there and yet I've been.
You need to come out. To create a game. Yeah, you need to come over. Maybe you try and hit the UK Games Expo and then we can give you a tour of other stately homes and, yeah, give you a figure. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Looking at the those bad American imitations, you know it's just not the same. Thing, it's not the same. OK, Well, yeah, thanks, Dan. Thanks for everything you've shared with us today. Sounds great. Thank you. Oh my God, I'm I'm trying not to be mad at you. I tried.
I tried to get you there. You did. You gave some, I did give some clues. That's that is true. But I was thinking to myself, I knew that Dan was moving to Utah, which he talked about and I was like, he's going to be too busy. There's no way just. A slight error when Dan forgot he'd moved and told me his time zone was five hours. And when I dialed into the call, he wasn't there. And he would. Yeah, yeah, I'm on time. He goes. I'm 7 hours. He forgotten the time zone difference.
I, I, I just want to say parlour, yeah. I mean, I love it. I love a trick, trick taking game. It's such a privilege to see the cards. Yeah. And the artwork that's come in. Yep. So keep an eye on that. And I remember this whether it was in the show or not. But Dan said he'd come back OK, I guess in another years time to talk about. If we get him on, if we get him on. I don't care how we do this, but I swear one of our episodes in the future has to be titled Hurricanes and Pirates.
Okay, yeah, yeah, when he said that, I was like, okay, pirates. And then yeah, I meant to. I was going to say about having the coins as doubloons and going down the whole pirate thing. That's why they were raiding the ships. But yeah, anyway I I forgot and I mentioned it now. But that is fantastic. So we've done it again. We've mentioned obsession in another episode. So did we start off the hundreds with at 100% of all episodes in a hundreds, That's our mentioned obsession.
Now you asked the Instagram followers of me between people what as they and ask me anything, ask us anything. Right. They didn't ask anything, PJ, because they did. They did OK, they did. They did it. I haven't, I haven't seen these. So this is my surprise. So where we launched our YouTube channel, this is it's not just episode 100, right? It's. It's episode part of YouTube, yeah. It is, yeah.
And so as a part of that, we talked about planning and upfront was like do a poll, ask us anything. And so we said, hey, if you ask us, we're going to air, we're going to read your question and answer it right here on our show. So the first one was, by great golly, it's Molly. Great name. You can create. I know you can create any kind of board game convention. What do you want it to be? What are the details? Where is it located and what is the? Theme.
It's located on an aircraft carrier Mid-Atlantic, wasn't that we said that one that early episode was some crazy idea about. So me. In the middle but I that I wasn't a serious answer but I think. I really love the fact that you upgraded us to an aircraft carrier. I think originally it was a battleship. I wasn't a battleship. We've gone, we've gone bigger. We've got a lot more, lot more people to host now on both
sides, absolutely. I think the reason the reason is that you and I can't afford a yacht, but we could probably afford a decommissioned naval that's. All but I guess, I guess location is a challenge. We had Cajuncom, which we did, we're going to talk about in a bit. I think if I had a convention, it has to be more about the playing than the buying and selling. Definitely bring them by.
I like people that come and trade games, but it has to be full of, yeah, our favorite people game is, Yep, I guess like Cajun Con, but just just bigger, bigger with a bigger kitchen. For anyone who was at Cajun Con, they'll know the kitchen was a size for postage, postage stamp. And then we learned there was another kitchen around the corner, which was like 15 times the size. But by that point it was too late. So yeah, you need space for food and catering.
Yeah, location's a challenge. We'd have to. It is, it is a challenge either we need like. Could we could we run 2 at the same time? I. Mean. Could we have Maple to Maple stream and live stream in live? Stream in. Maybe that's that would be. Really cool that. Would be so we have AUS and UK Con on the same day connecting gamers across the Atlantic. So the challenge then becomes, as you and I already know and we
talk about the first time zones. We could do like a 20 if we did, If we got another set of gamers like in Asia, we could do a 24 hour marathon where we're literally the sun. The gaming convention starts early hours in Asia, comes over to Europe, we host it and then we pass the baton. If the if you can, anyone can play the whole way through all three conventions. They get a medium to people badge which is 20. Four hours live. We can live stream live. Stream.
On our on our YouTube. Three cameras, right? That's my answer, right? I like that. That needs to happen. Right, we could make that happen. That could that's really relatively straightforward. Make a note 24 hours. 2024. Hours sunrise to sunset. I mean, they kind of do that with Extra Life already, which is a charity event, so. This is this is our event. But this is our event, yes? Bridging. Meeble, meeble to meeble. Around the world. Which is our tagline.
Good question. So how about, how about this one? She had a she had a second question. What up? What upcoming game are you looking forward to on Kickstarter? On Kickstarter. She did say. She did also say and why is it raising rabbits? There's an entire story. Behind that story there that I've not researched, No, it's not. Her her partner is the designer of Raising Rabbits and he's fixing to launch on Kickstarter, so that's why So she was taking a jab at me, but I thought the
question was good. I'm curious to know Gareth I. Haven't got much. I mean, what, the only thing I have coming back is Speakeasy Vital. Yeah, that's the only thing I've backed and there isn't. If I look at what I've saved, what I've got saved, you've got state razor realm that goes live Tuesday the. Tuesday. 15th. Yep. I've got the Raising Robots Friends expansion which is like a it's quite a nice wingspan esque kind of game. Right. Is that right?
By mine clash games looks pretty good, got some S and. That's on my list. That was my list. That was. That is my answer right there. Is there's a game that pops up, I made you a mixtape by Dan Hughes. The I can show can show my camera. You can see kind of artwork. It's kind of 80s retro. And I don't know whether this is, I guess some in the US, but used to make mixtapes in the 80s. Yeah, that popped up recently. So I don't know much about it apart from me.
Look, they look great. So we should say that for our for our millennial audience back when we were younger than I. Young. I am young. To to express our love or interest in a girl, we would make them a mixtape. And I made mixtapes for myself. That's what I ever did. That was it on a Sunday afternoon. Stop, start, stop, start. They were good, honestly. What have you got? My list is Revenant by mine Clash. That's the one game. It's the one game I'm looking forward to. Just fantastic.
And I guess of course Tend by Ivy Studios, which is coming up. As Becky and Craig, I'm gonna get to see that. Rolling. Right then. Scratch and come on. Scratch and sniff. There's no sniffing. Remember Scratch and sniffs. Do you remember that? I do the non Kickstarter. I am desperate to play SETI from Yeah games. That is the number one game #1 post Essen and desperate to play. But the question was Kickstarter. So yeah, it was, yeah. OK. Study. Good question. I mean double question now.
OK so our friend Jonathan from RE engineer the game. He asked us how do we get ideas for our episodes. PJ, you do the work, I do the tech, you do the work. I. Do I think we're probably going to cover this in a bit because I was reflecting on 100 episodes and there's, but we've been in a bit of a journey. We've had episodes with designers, We've had episodes with, with guests. I guess we talked a bit about guests with Craig. And Becky? Yeah. And then we've we've done things
about time of year. So I guess it's been a bit about seasonality. I mean conventions. It seems to be milestones that happened. Sure. Through the year and then I guess we've had one of my favorite episodes recently was actually the AI one just because I thought it was really good a really good discussion yes, with Christopher who's an artist in the industry. So it's worth having a listen.
But yeah, apart from that, I think we just chat, don't we, over Instagram. And then you, you often throw together the last 10 you've shaped. Yeah. But if anyone, if anyone's hear anything that wants to hear certain topics, do put them in the comments, please like and subscribe. And then you don't use it again. I've said it twice. Yeah. You did. You did. I've not said it yet. I'm. No, you're holding. It in the end. Yeah, make it special.
So the way that I get ideas when I'm planning is it's either because I'm at a convention and it's based on conversations I'm having with other gamers and I'm like, that would be a really good podcast episode sometimes. And this is true. So someone asked me, this is not one of the questions, but someone had asked me, hey, how do I get to be a guest on your
podcast? I was like, just tell us you want to be on and what topic you want to talk about because that's what we'll do That's it. Just it's got to be board game related. But hell, even AI is. And no more than, no more than. Right, no more than three. So, so that's, that's usually what I do. It's either pressing, pressing, you know, topics, or it's just seasonality like you said, because we do. Which I guess we're going to have to do Halloween pretty soon
because it's coming. Yeah, we do. Maybe it's in fancy dress this time because we can be seen. I mean, you can just go around your garden, man. You've you've been ready for like 13 days and we haven't even I know that there is a pumpkin out as in little fluffy one. There we go one single puppy pumpkin. Don't we don't do push our spritz. We can't celebrate Halloween until Halloween. You could do it live from your garden. You could do it live from your garden, couldn't you?
Like you could just go and surround yourself with Ghostbusters and. Yep, sure could, but they wouldn't be lit up so it would be dark and you. Could bring them inside and put them behind you. Yeah, OK. Anyway. That's a little little much. Moving on. Moving on. Moving, moving on. So our good friend John from Tri win Games, you know we can always count on him. Yeah, always count on John. This is. Thank you, John. Just thank you, John for standing in.
Yes, on numerous occasions. Numerous occasions, yeah. Here's the question. If time and money and space were no object, what meeple to meeple thing would you do? What meatball to meatball? Yeah, I mean, it was about space. Maybe we could. Maybe we could have a rocket. Yeah. You know my question I used to ask Meatball Mondays. About. If you go into space, you've got a rocket. You're going to play games of space station. What do you do?
You can only bring three games. Three games and you could take some friends and there was like there is space, there is gravity and there was I can't, I batch remember all the different things that people added in, but that'd be quite cool. I mean, we could take some friends. I mean, after I think today they've space rockets gone up and it's been caught with some tweezers, if you saw that
earlier. Yeah. Yeah, if we had no time and we had space, then I'd go and play some board games orbiting the planet and we can play Obsession there. We go and we can play obsession. I think for me it would be to be able to purchase. A yacht to go and do a convention in the middle of the. Atlantic, how cool would it be is if we had a yacht or we had some sort of a sea going vessel that, you know, had people, right? A dingy.
No, we could go to England and we could play obsession at a Manor house, which I got to do, which is pretty cool. But we could go to different places. Like, how cool would it be to go to Asia and, you know, go to China? And so we can go to Thai Garden and just sail around the world in our in our yachts. Yeah, and play games on location in the location the game is inspired by. Very good. Yeah, well. Just just get a TARDIS and we could just, well, you know, time travel.
That's true. Good question. Good question, John. Thank you. And then bring your own dice. He asked. If you could change one thing about the general board game community, what would you change? That's a good question. That's APJ level question. I like those questions. I don't know if I I mean the community is diverse. Well. What we learned is that there's no one board game community, right? Yeah. Well, we're saying there's each Youtubers.
Form has their own. Has their own group whether you're on TikTok, Instagram. Yeah. X. Yep. I That's because I mostly live in the Instagram community. Excuse me? I don't think I'd change much because whenever we do meet up with people, it's the diversity of the games that we play and who we are that makes it so relevant and fun. What do I change? I mean, I can say everyone needs to like obsession, but that doesn't feel very fair, does it? That doesn't feel.
Fair, everyone needs to enjoy an 8 hour game of Twilight Imperium. OK. Mandated. That's a rule. And you? Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I'd change anything. I'm quite happy with how things are. How about you? Would you change anything? I, I would, I would change something. So I love what you and your fellow countrymen do with your little gathering, similar to Cajun Khan, Gen. Con with AJ, Scoot Con, all those little cons where you get together and you can bring your children.
There's a playground for them to keep entertained. There's a kitchen for you to bring, bring and make your own food. So it's potluck. We don't do a lot of that here in the US. Like it's got to be an officially sanctioned convention, right? That has vendors and badges and everything. I'd like to see more. The Maple to meeple to meeple. Sunset and sunrise would be it. True, that's true. Do do do do. People not hire out. I mean, we'd call them community
centers. You might call them, I don't know what what what's the equivalent of like you came to Cajun Con. It was a small community centre with a couple of halls. Do you have You must have places like that? There are not a lot of places like that, right? There aren't a lot of them. So basically it would be like a permanent structure on a park, some sort of City Park. And that does exist. But well, I mean, if we could, if we could fit 50,000 people in
a I'm thinking. Like a basketball and that's about it. I mean, I'm not thinking, you know, OK, yeah, sports hole. I'm not thinking, you know some. Sport. 50,000 people, that'd be great. I mean, that's, you know. Yeah it would be the reality is I would just like to see I would like to see more let's get together bring food and game and not because so one of the problems is well I got kids and I can't travel with them or you
know, food is perishable. I mean just you know what y'all all come to Springfield. We're all going to do this. We're going to have a whole day of gaming here and food will be provided and it'll be great. Make it over the UK so we're much closer to each other. I think that's part of that might be it. I think so, but. The amount of food is insane. I mean, it is, yeah, it is a feast. Feast of Food. Feast of Food. Feast of Food and that, that's a good question, so I've enjoyed those.
Yeah, they were good. So we talk about our favorite bits, I guess, 100 episodes in. 100 episodes What? Were you what? I mean, just a couple of highlights. What's things, what episodes, your favorites or what things or what topics floated your boat the most? I really enjoyed talking to Matt and Zara a year ago. I just thought when they were just launching to Van Gogh, that was just an incredible conversation. I think it was the first one that was kind of serious topic. It was.
Yeah, it. Was and they were the first designers on the show so it's a first episode 52. I've got it there as yeah, Matt and Zara is a high up on my list and now it's in the wild. In fact, you sent me a photograph of in the Wild in a shop, Yeah, which I have yet to see in a shop. So. And pride me. Right. I mean, who would have what for that placement? You've done it again. Obsession on one side of your heads and Kavango and you've got you've got botany above.
I mean, they've been on the show where else you got hiding away. I hadn't even noticed what's behind your head. There's anything behind your head? So behind my head is Duveer Games. Oh, what a collection. Yep. Yeah, nice socially. Duveer. Yeah, good. They've not been on a show, but they should be on the show as a. Publisher, you were working on that? I'm working on that one. Yeah. No, I thought that the man's horror was a good one. Yeah, we spoke to them for like
a like another ally. We're saying we did, We did where? And then we've met them. They came to Cajun Con. They did, which was incredible. Which was amazing. So there's not many people who've met both of us in the same place at the same time. That's. True, although that number has grown. It has grown. There is still small. It is. It is still small. Still small. I really. Yeah, go. I really enjoyed my conversation with Alex and Hannah. Yeah, that was that was really, it was just so good.
It was just so good to talk about just their perspective on being both gamers and content creators in the Uki mean, I don't know, I did. That was just. Well, I mean, I heard the same with when I was talking to Kristen and Laura in episode 96. Not that long ago. It was similar. You could you did the UK content creators. I covered the US back to the three the way three worked. That's it. I mean that Dan Halligan was 57 not far after Matt and Zara, but
that was that's a good that. Was a good one. After talking about it so much, I think we've had about 123456789, about 10 members of the ball game community. I might have gotten a few. Mosia was Episode 27 right at the beginning. Yeah. Diz we had Craig we had Dennis, we had the infamous episode 69. 69. With Nick, which went a bit chaotic right up to recently, we had that really good episode with Taro 98 when we talked about her mission to play the the twins. What did you call it?
Parallel Parallel rolling rights. Yeah, so where there's a ball game and a rolling right version of the same game and that made me by after avoiding shuffle for a shuffle for quite a while, that's now become nearly one of the most played games this year in about in about four weeks. I am rubbish. But my wife, he's amazing, which is why if he keeps looking to play for a shuffle. Of course. Of course, yes dear, we are, yes we are. But she is.
She's really liking that. And we've already added the Alpine and Wooden's, Wooden's Wooden's on its way. That's pre-ordered. What's? Interesting is that Laura is known as the Forest Shuffle Queen. Yeah, I'm not going to attempt to play a game we pushed off with her yet. Yeah, I need more practice. I'm clearly not very good at. I'm not very good at that game, no, but I think I'm doing well. And then and then. You need to connect connect your wife and Laura together on BG. Yeah.
Then that'd be perfect. Yeah, they can show me how it's done. There you go other episodes. I've always enjoyed the I had the convention sound bite once. So when we've, it's always a challenge because we use mics and conventions really loud. So it's it's really hard to get a decent sounding episode. But when whenever we hear from members of the community on the show, if it's like 5 seconds or 32nd clip that you've recorded, I've recorded at conventions.
It's just great to hear people having fun at conventions. They're good, I said about the AI one. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. That was a good conversation. You know what's interesting about the sound bites is you and I approach them differently. You record them there on the floor. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm just you get sent into afterwards, yeah. So the sound is cleaner. Yeah, I'm just there. I think I've got a better idea for Nextcon, I think. Yeah, we'll see whether it's any better.
I put them inside a bubble record here. A portable sound booth is what I really need. That's what you need. We've had, we've had a few times that I haven't been around. I don't think there's only once, PJ, you've only missed one show in 100. Well, I think. Technically, Technically, that's right. And I missed about 5. I was not present for the conversation you had with Dan. Well, that's that's today, but you are here. It's true. It's true.
We've said, you know, thanks to John trying games for stepping. A number of times we've had Adam and Jerry, I think covered. Yes. Some point earlier in the year. So I want to say let's not like John. The there were two episodes where John stepped in for you. I messaged him like an hour before our normal record time. Legend. And he said yes, like I didn't even give him. A topic just turn up. He's like, I'll be there and he's always showed up and I
appreciate that. Yeah, that was the episode with with Jerry and Adam was when we were at Tennessee game days. That was recorded. That episode was recorded while we were in my hotel room. I had the microphone in between US and I learned the reason why you need headsets. Yeah. In mobile studio? Yeah, mobile recording studio with a sound booth. With a sound booth. Recap episodes, both have always
been quite popular. When we talked about like I think the episode we did beginning of the year, that was reflect and. Reflect and rewind. Or rewind something. Well, we talked about the last year and then looked forward this year, which we'll have to listen to quite soon because this year is really coming to an end. And see what we said, see what we said we were going to do. That's true.
And then the early on we used to do something called top five 2 + 2 + 1 and which was you choose two games, I chose two games. And then we tried to find a game that to go the theme, I don't know, Roland writes. We tried to talk about two things that we both loved that we hadn't played. Those are ones I'd like to try and do a few more, not not go back to massively, but there must be more themes that we should do. But that's my reflection.
And of course, Cajuncon episode 75 and we recorded together. Together, that was the. That easier, didn't it? It was so much opposite each other. It was. It was anyway. Until. Reminiscing. Oh, I know, right? It was one of the few days where it wasn't overcast or raining. The sun came out while we were recording. That's true. Yeah. It's nice. It's lovely. Lovely. Because. Because Katie and your cat. Would. Consider right in our view in the cemetery. Yep, you just put my wife in
front of a cat and she's. Happy she's quite. She was what about so here we are episode 100. What about looking towards have you got the next 10 plans or we, well, you've you've already recorded 101. Oh, there we go. We've already I'm only I've now done 50% of the episodes in the hundreds because I didn't do 101 because you decide I'm going to record and that's recorded. I think it works. So I think, I don't think, I personally don't think we should stress about it.
I'm not. No, I think we just make it work so 101 is recorded. 101 is recorded. That's going to be interesting conversation. We go back to the play testing, which by the way, was a really cool episode where we talked about play testing. Yeah, yeah, we're very different. I got a copy of a game from Weird Giraffe Games and the designer and I didn't know this at the time, the founder of Weird Draft Games, Carla Kopp, she's going to be our guest and she and I had a really good conversation.
So one O 1 is in the bag. So 102 and onwards, yeah, we'd better work out what we're doing. I mean, it's, it's cool. I mean, we've got video episodes like and subscribe. So I've got I've got interest, but no hard commitments from designers, from gamers, you name it. We just got to start lining up. Yeah, we have. Got we've just got to get a date lined up for one of the most popular word team games. That's right, probably in the world.
I think if top top probably number one on two word games, word association games interview. Just need to get a date that could be very soon. It could be, and should be within the next two or three episodes. So I've got convention season. Have you got any conventions coming up? Even got anything before Christmas? Well, you were kind. Of trying Christmas. No, I was going to try but it didn't happen so. It doesn't happen so my have Essen 2025 as a mission to.
You. It's in the diary because it's later next year. This year was really early. It was next year. Works better for me. OK, I've said I'm going as I've never been, which is shocking really. I think that at some point we need to record an episode at a convention. Yeah, we need to come to UKG. Well, I always have to go to England. It's it's because you love England. There you go. If I come to America, I've got to bring three people with me.
It's cheaper. Yeah. I I would. I have to bring the family. My kids won't allow me to come to America without bringing them with me. That's like in. Well, we had the boat so I could just sail over. I mean the boat would be good. The boat would be good. I could do do a pedal low, just, you know, get there in 202 hundred days. Yeah, obviously more guests. Anyone listening once we join the show, just DM us. Yeah, we'll write it in the comments. Always welcome to come on the show.
Tell us when you want to come on and what do you want to talk about? Yeah, and anything, whether that's game concepts, designing your own game. Yep, being on the podcast, being a Tik Toker, whatever topic might be. Being an influencer, content creator, whatever, travelling to meet gamers around the world, whatever you want to talk about, we're we're not opposed. We don't shy away from the difficult questions. We've got a logo change coming up. We do, which is waiting for comment from you.
Oh, is it? I have note to self. PJ has told me something that I've clearly missed in my in my tardiness of reading the Meeple to Meeple notebook. Launching a YouTube episode or launching a YouTube channel and it being episode 100 required a lot of planning. We've had a lot of stuff going on. It's been. We've got, we've got, I've got more notes and normally there's a, there's a card like this and I've usually got about 5 things and I've got a card and a piece
of paper. Wow, you don't have? A, you know, guess. I have a red card. Do you? I see you got a yellow card that's not. No yet Yellow cards? No, there's no red goods. OK, I did think about having a red card to hold up if I make an an error so when I do editing it was easier to spot. Oh. Because audio, when we used to make it like we've made areas on the podcast, I'll just do a clap and then I'll see this big spike on the audio. We'll see how editing is later. I'm hoping and. Then audio.
Used to be ready. Now it automatically cuts the pauses and yeah. AI is there. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I should ask AI, if those who haven't seen the show before, we sometimes we've had this little segment where we just asked AI to give us some inspiration and it worked. It worked quite well, hasn't it? I mean, we generally, we find that it has. CI is generally framed back to our conversation we had with Christopher about being a tool. It's been quite a useful tool to
find. Out and for those of you who are new to the channel, welcome. We're glad to have you. So this is technically episode 1 on the channel, but we have 100 episodes or 99 episodes that you can listen to on your favorite podcast streaming service. Yeah, so, so it's come back and I asked it for 100 games through 100 episodes and it's come back with 20 and I'm just going to put 3 underrated hidden gems. I reckon between us we've got some hidden gems.
Particularly we've had friends over recently where they've been looking at the collection and there's so many games that, you know, we've been in my life for 10-15 years. But if you're a new gamer, no idea. And I was like classic, classic, classic. So we could definitely go and talk about some of those. I mean, not even hidden gems, English, the board games, the history of board games, you like ancient civilizations. We cover that and I love the sieve games.
So maybe we could tie those two together. People design, discuss the art and physical components of board game, but we could deep it, delve into the whole Maple logo and that, you know, the whole copyright piece around the meeple artwork. Currently there's more, but there's 3. So we were going to wrap up talking about, Yep, some of the games we've talked about. You've got that list. Yeah, so this is kind of like the this is Meeple to Meeple's top five games is what this is.
What we've talked about, you've analyzed every episode. You've counted how many minutes in episodes we talked about these games. Good, good. I like this. Yeah. Good analysis. And I think the first one we don't have to say anything about, and that's obsession. Yeah. I mean, we've segwayed that into talking about, I think we talked about Nemesis, which might be on your list, but I think somehow we have obsession in that number. 2. #2 there's two extremes, Obsession and Nemesis.
Maybe we need to smash those games together and have a game of Nemesis inside the stately home. Oh. Right, There's more. There's a world. So that is a whole new world. The number three meeple to meeple game is Rococo. Yeah, we, yeah, we had an episode in that. Now you can't remember. I don't. I don't remember that. In the 60s, I'm gonna say. Sure. Yeah, episode. I forgot that episode. Yeah, we did the whole yeah, that's a good episode. Because that was a good episode.
That was a great episode. Oh, go, go, go. That's so much, so beautiful. We recently played that again. That game is so good. It doesn't get enough love. Yeah, no, it doesn't. Yeah, it's a cracking game. How about Kootenahora? Oh, now that's the beginning. That was the end. The beginning of 2024. That game hit my table, I think. I think I got it for Christmas. And you know, that is a lovely game. You did. You did get it for Christmas and
you talked about it a lot. And so Katie and I were trying to find it, right? And then eventually we found it when we came back from Cajun Con. Yeah, except I played it at Cajun Con, so it's definitely April time still. We will still be in March. April time, Yeah, that hasn't hit the table in the last three or four months. Mostly because when I was at UK Games Expo, Check Games had a stand with these lovely purple T-shirts and they they said I couldn't have one.
I really liked that T-shirt but it was for for demo, demo people only. Maybe I maybe I should try to get that next year, but that's a good game. You should demo. That's what you should go work, yeah. I did ask the other week about whether there's any expansions coming, yeah, and I was told it was too early to discuss. Oh. Which means yes. That's a definite yes. Definitely, yes, yeah. And then #5 this is the number 5 meeple to meeple game. Darwin's Journey.
Yeah, we talked about that a lot as well. We did and did an entire episode on Darwin. 'S they're all pretty heavy games though. There's no yeah, there are. Like for listeners there are episodes on two player games and lightweight games. Yep. And family games. Nemesis Obsession, the Coco's midweight. It's midweight. And Darwin's journey. Yeah, that's a bit heavyweight, Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I do
like my heavy games. Yep, a really popular episode was our last third one early on to think about heavy games you talked about. The Gal. As the design, As a designer, As a. Designer. Really popular episode really early on like episode 12 or if you need heavier games, you want to know about more of the complex games, go and check that episode out. That's a good one. That's a. Good one. That's worth it. That's worth it.
So yeah, check it out. Yeah, that's the top five Maple to Maple games for the first 100. I wonder what I just say 200 top five games to be. The real question is, will Obsession remain our favorite game? Yeah, well, most talked about game, right. We what we what we should do for Christmas is our like, you know, the whole top ten, what is our top 10 personal favorite games and see where obsession ends up because we talk about it a lot as a channel and it's a really
popular game in our group. But I've been to see where if I did top top ten games as I stand today. I mean, it'll be in there for sure. I'm not sure. What number one? I'm not sure what number one is. I don't know, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna finish off with an important stat. So the reason why we haven't played Koot No Horror in a while is because we are at 97.7% of our entire collection. How much of your collection have you played this year?
Please bear with me as I boot up the all time stats. 90. Seven point. 7% of our collection this year has been played once. We have. Six games left to play this year. So if I look at my all time stats of all the games that we own and of what we've played, we're on 80%. If I look at all the base games we played this year, we're on 17, which is bad because I think other years we've been in the 20s and. Now you understand that the objective is to play every game in your culture once for the
calendar year. Yeah, I've, I've never played that game. I'm just going for every five years. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I. Mean that 80% though he's got some games which are in my pile to just sell. You know they've not hit the table now, which means, which means they're never going to get played. So the beauty of this, the beauty of. Doing this, it's a good, it's a good thing to do and we talked about earlier a week ago. Did you?
Yeah, as in me and my wife. Yeah, me and Harry sat there and said we've got a lot of games you haven't played, and we have been working through them. But then, like this weekend, we played. We played new games. Yeah, well, new games, people. People come around with other games you like, Let's play other games. We had Owen, who designed Fame and Fable, which will hit Kickstarter next year. Yeah, he was at. Essence and he was at UK Games, he and it's beautiful artwork.
He's the artist and he's a designer. So that was yesterday. So that was a whole 2 hours. There you go. I've ticked off a game but it's not in my collection. So I'm proud to say, and if anyone follows Instagram, that is good. Six games left, we played my father's work this morning and we unlocked a whole new ending. Oh, you hadn't seen? Because there's if you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good. Good work. So what's 6 games are left? Are they heavy or are they like
walk in the park or? We took out Twilight Imperium 8 hours. No, most of them are Halloween themed that we reserve for October. Yeah, so like Mysterium Night Cage? What else? For some reason Destiny's hasn't been played yet this year, so I need to get that to the table. But yeah, we get like, so you could do 1A week. Oh yeah. So Katie wants us to play 100% of our games by Halloween so that November and December we can just play whatever we want, whenever we want.
Yeah, Yeah, that's a good mission. I mean, we, we were trying to do the A-Z and I think we're, we're on J, but when we got, we got Diz, he's playing A-Z. But they're playing every game that's A and every game that is B and every game they own is C. So it's not just play what we're, we're playing the one letter at a time, right. But you can't, you can't go past like J until you played AJ. So whether you've played AK doesn't count until you get
there. I I do want to do a shout out the very first game that you and I played in person at your table, but was it you remember? No, I don't. It was Let's Go to Japan by Josh. Yes. An AG. Yeah, it just arrived. You've now you've got a copy now because I've got that. Copy Yeah, and Josh is supposed to come on. We just haven't worked out the schedule. Yeah, that's a great game. Yeah, that that that did well, Essen, from what I saw as well.
Yeah, yeah, it's only just hit UK, you know, game shops. Is that right? Yeah, it's only really only last maybe a month ago that I saw it pop up and it sold out straight away. So it's still hard to find, as hard to find as Middle Ages. That's still not available. That is why I grabbed the copy and pre-ordered it before Gen. Con. So that I, yeah, that'd be my list of back end of the year. We played that game a lot. That's a game that we will probably play as soon as
Halloween is over. Yeah, Like we haven't played it because we still have more games to play as part of our objective. And so then we have November. Spinning shrink. Oh no ages. Oh, you've opened that. We've played it. I've played it, but we yeah, about you. And once you've got into your, you've hit your milestone. Right. So that's the plan, yeah. Ryan Well, that's episode 100 done. Do you want to do the like and subscribe? I know you've been waiting for the ends.
Yeah, yeah. So don't forget to like and subscribe. I probably did that wrong, but now Gareth is going to have to put them where we're appointed. Yeah, I don't know where they are. Like this way. Now I can Just Dance. But you have to figure that out. Thanks for listening, but thanks for watching. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. And we'll be back with Episode 101. That PJS, That's right. Or his own with no memes. It works well. And then I'll be back for 102.
No2. Thanks to our guest, thanks to Dan, thanks to Craig, thanks to Becky. Thank you, PJ. Thanks everyone else. See you soon. All right.