Welcome to Meeple to Meeple uniting players around the world, a 30 minute exploration of PJ and Gareth's four-game experiences from across both sides of the Atlantic. Each episode, they share their thoughts and opinions on the World of War games, including their favorite themes, games, hot topics, and much, much more. Hey and Happy New Year. Welcome to Episode 64 Reflect and Project. These are going to be our gems of 2023. As always, I am PJ. And I'm Gareth.
I am so happy to see you. Happy New Year, Gareth. Happy New Year. It's been a small break across Christmas. Yep. But we're back and I'm looking forward to, I guess, another another year's worth of talking about ball games. I mean, that's what we do best, right? We are going to meet up this year, which is yes, we haven't told anybody about, but it's going to happen. It's going to happen. About two and a half 2 1/2 months away. Yeah, yes, yes.
It is less than three months away that you and I will be face to face in the same room. Oh my gosh. Cajun Cajun Con. I love it. I love it. Cajun Con in Southampton. That's right. You heard it here. I will be in England the first two weeks of April. If you didn't invite DM me Instagram. Gareth is point man on what we are calling Cajun Con. I believe that's the weekend of April the 6th I believe. Going to check now, it's the. Saturday, April 6th I think is
the target date for. It is the 6th. There you go guys. So y'all reach. Out in area, more details will drop on the socials this week. And this is open to everyone in on the Isle of the UK he wants to fly in and then the conic, you know you want to fly from the US. Fly in, Just come in. Do it. It'll be great. Do it'll be great. I'm trying to get some of our friends from Eastern Europe to join us, but you know, we'll see how that goes. So Hampton's easy to get to.
Heathrow, Bristol, Gatwick, Southampton's got an airport, We've got ferries from the Isle of Wight. You got trains? Trains. You got it all. So, so the structure of this episode, like I said, is our gems of 2023. So Gareth and I are going to talk about We're both each going to talk about our favorite game from 2023, our favorite episode of our podcast from 2023, and our favorite moment from 2023, which is very that's a wide open. But so it's game, episode, and moment.
Those are our gems of 2023. But before we begin, Oh no. Oh no. What's happened? I was listening to episode 24 of our podcast. I feels like it's a year ago. Did I make some? It was so. What sweeping statements did we make about 2023? That you're now going to pick on. It was January 10th, 2023, and we were. Looking we. Were looking forward and so at first you said you're not going to make any predictions because you don't know what 23/20/23 has
in store. However, though you had three games that you were looking forward to. Oh, John, then, yeah. So the first one was Oros. Yes, I could. Yeah. Did you enjoy that? Did you get, did you get it? Yes, I got it. And we played it a lot to player. OK. Your second one was Beast, which I know you got. Yeah. Yeah, that's arrived and we had the privilege of the expansion arrive constant early. And then your third game was Bantam West.
Which also arrived, but we haven't got to the table I need. I need like 4 solid players. So what I'm hearing is Cajun Con is a great opportunity for Bantam W to hit the table. I think the challenge of Cajun Con is going to be what I mean when you visit what games are we going to play? Because time is fixed, right? And the obsession needs to be on that list. It does. It does need to be on the list. And whatever else we've talked about, I mean, Twilight Imperium, that's 12 hours gone
already. We are not playing Twilight Imperial, OK? And then banter W is another three. So it's it's But before that, it's interesting that you brought up Twilight Imperium, because it leads me to my last point and my final question I wanted to ask you. In episode 24, you talked about Twilight Imperium and you said that you were going to play Twilight Imperium four times in 2023. Did you do that? No, hang my head in shame. I'm just going to check. I think you played three.
No, no, definitely not that. I think we've played it once. No, I know you played it twice in 2023, right? Did we? It was, I think so. I believe so. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking for my stats. I'm pretty sure you put me under. It you've put me under pressure. You know, that's why you and I are such good friends, because I pressure you. Constantly just just pad while we open up the board game Geek stats. I mean board game stats app or
you don't own that stats app? We're, you know, it's interesting. We're talking about getting that. Yes, we played it twice. OK, so the three games that you were looking forward to receiving this year in 2020 or last year in 2023, you you've got them all. If you play two of them, your commitment to play Twilight Imperium 4 times, you only made it 2 so. I've got to say, it's a miracle. It's a miracle that two happened. Yeah. But I will talk about one of those games. You will.
You will. So you also talked about how 20 you and you also projected 2023 was going to be the year of expansions. You talked a lot of in fact, you listed a ton of expansions. Did I? You did I I tried to write them all down. There was an expansion to Hidden Legends. Oh yeah, that's good. That's arrived. The third expansion to canvas. That's all right. That's been played a lot. These are good. These are good. Yep. And then the expansion to Wonderland War.
Hasn't arrived. Hasn't OK, so check. Shipping shipping at the moment though. We, as you recall, you backed Wonderland's War. It was the first game you ever painted, I think in 2022 we did an episode about that. So when the announcement for the expansion came out, my wife and I backed Wonderland's War and the expansion. We have them. They arrived the day before Christmas Eve. We have not opened the box yet. It's it's, it's sitting on the
table. It's like, ah, there's so many things to get to and and we got to paint them first. So you know you. You do need to. Paint them. You got to paint them first. Just just rewinding. We need to play Nemesis when you're here as well and maybe you should bring the Christmas hats just be because. I could put that in a pocket. That's so. Easy. Easy to bring. That is easy, yes. Yeah. OK, we'll do that. Anyway, yeah, I I mean that was a good segment. I have no idea what I said. I yeah.
I talked about two games I was looking forward to in 2023, was distilled from Patterson games, which I did receive and played. A lot mega fan. And then Frost Haven, which did arrive. Now how far did you get through? So far we are. So last weekend we played We're now at 32% complete, OK, And we unlocked a new character, so. Based on that pace, we'll start another year and a half. Oh yeah. Probably 2.
Probably so we can. We can reflect on the reflection of your progress this time next year when you look back and say that, so 32%, January 24, let's see what percent you are January 2525. 25 S Also a quick quick recap of just some stats. We have 234 games in our collection. We played 95.5% of our entire collection last year, right? Yep. So what I realized after keeping track over the past three years, if if 95% of my collection is played, I'm happy. I call that a success.
I'm on 21, so I feel successful. Yeah, well, I mean, you're just successful every day, so you know. I definitely It's our it was our worst game game playing year for quite a few years. Yeah, you had a busy. Mostly the back end of the year, October, November. You had a busy. You had a busy year to be. Usually those months are our spike because it gets darker, but I I commend you for your 95% or whatever it was a thank. You thanks. We did better the year before.
So we ticked down slightly. I think we did 96 point something in 22, we did 95 in 23. So we'll see. Hopefully we can keep it up in the New year. So I'm. Sure you will. That's a recap of our opening of 2023, and now we're going to get to our gems, right? I love this gems. This is brilliant, right? This was great. I mean, so inspirational. We figured this out like 5 minutes before we recorded. To be genius it. Peaks the. Entire year. So who's going to doing the
first game? You're going to go first, you're you're going to go first your favorite game that you played in 2023? It's a tough one. Weirdly, the games that I said I'm looking forward to aren't in this list. So notable highlights. We have thoroughly enjoyed the back end of the airplane. Ticket to Ride. I haven't chose the legacy. I haven't chosen that one. We finished it today.
Don't tell me because we haven't finished it yet, but if anyone's thinking about we're on the fence or on the track about that one, go and grab it. We've played quite a lot of small games this year, so like Town 66, Project L sneaks in. But the one game that we played the most out of a more heavyweight was Darwin's Journey. I love that game. I have taught it to many people. It's I think you've now you've now received your copy or you've got got it for Christmas. And we've played it.
We've played it once so far. So. So it's a mixture of what? Worker placement, action selection, trying to build out your crew. It's just a mixture of different mechanics, two sides of the board. You start with the simple version, but if I'm honest, I think the full game is on the other side with the Firelands Firelands expansion map. It's just delicious and. So good. Yeah, just so many things to consider.
You've got the classic worker placement of I needed to go there, but somebody else has got there before you. Trying to explore the islands, discover the different species, get them to the museum. Absolutely fantastic. And there's been my game of the year in terms of what I have enjoyed. So I'm going to, I'm going to catch you on this at the end of so January of 25. I'm be like, so Darwin's journey, yeah. Still be there. It's it's. We've even talked about playing it this Friday.
Just gone. But the city of Silver has sneaked in to Kutnahora. If that's pronounced right now, I'm making another prediction. I'm hoping that's one of my games of the year for 25. Let's write that down. I don't know, but we play three times in a week and that is pretty rare for a medium sized game, so. So do me a favour, do me a favour real quick. I want you on air right now to pitch to my wife Why we need to get Kunihora. Oh, it it is the smoothest.
The mechanics are beautifully, beautifully meshed together. The production is wonderful. It's got these two decks of cards with little sliders which some people have found challenging. So guess what? Czech Games Republic bought an app that is just as good. I prefer the maths and adding it up.
The the boards and the components have this opulent lush gold and silver colour palette and it plays really well at 2-3 and we've now played it at 4:00 so we played it, that's good, 234 player counts and I love it and every time I played it I've learned a little bit more. So if you haven't seen that game, it came out at S and that's one of my favorite games for this year. Let's see what I say January 25. So we were in Cincinnati. OH, we went to the Capstone Games store.
Yeah, they had. They had a copy along with the metal coins. I got the coins. So we thought about getting it, but we were like, you know, let's try and get more capstone games, games, capstone game store. So we did that, but then we were at our local game store here in Springfield. My wife had it. She goes, do you want it? And I'm like do you or you know, she doesn't know. She doesn't really heard. Like she hears me talk about it.
So it's like, you know now when she listens to episode Kutna Pura Pura if you. If you don't collect it, obviously when you visit, we can add that to the games list. We better start compiling a game selection, Yeah, separately. So I should probably get to my game. Yeah, What was your game of the year? So we just talked about it. It was it's consistent from January, episode 24 was distilled. As you said, I'm a big fan. Still yet to play this game? It is so good, Craig needs to teach.
It teach me, yeah. Every time we see it, we're like we play it, then we go now let's not play it because it just annoys PJ. Yeah, it does. It does. It does annoy me. So tell us, tell us about distilled. Distilled is great. It is a resource management market. There's a market phase and then there's a distilling phase. The distilling phase is what makes this game shine above all other games.
So you get to the market and you there are some ingredients that are free, some you have to pay for, some are upgrades to distillery, whatnot. But when you get to the distill phase, you take all the ingredients out of your pantry and you add in alcohol cards and then you shuffle them, and this represents the actual process of distilling the alcohol. So you're shuffling. You then take the bottom card and the top card because you cannot.
Part of the distilling process, you can't use because it's the dregs at the bottom of the the container. And then the top you skim off so you don't use the top and the bottom of the actual physical liquid when you're distilling. So you remove. Yeah, this is amazing, clever. It's really clever. And then you take the rest, and based on those ingredients, it determines whether or not you have made rum or whiskey or vodka or whatever it is you're
trying to to distill. Some of them require aging. They require bottles or barrels, wood barrels, steel barrels. So you have to distill them. And the longer they distill, they get more flavor cards, which equate to more victory points when you finally go to sell them later in the game. I mean, I'm not a big whiskey fan. I enjoy whiskey. I'm I'm not much of A, I'm not much of A consumer of alcohol in general. But this game is so beautiful. It is so magnificent.
And then Patterson's going to do another game next year that I'm really looking forward to. So you know, that's distilled. You need to play this game as soon as possible. Could you make into some very terrible drinking game that every time some if you had a rack of bottles like vodkas and every time somebody makes a drink you have to do a shop? You could do that. In fact, there's a little set collection. You can collect bottles. So after you sell them your unique bottles, you keep off to
the side. And the more you have, the more victory points at the end of the game. Because that's one of the things you can purchase in the market is better barrels, better bottles, better ingredients, better pizza. Papa John's? No, sorry. You could basically, if he's somehow get Craig and Becky, we can you can teach me that occasion and I'll bring the alcohol there. You go then. Because someone's driving home.
I feel like, I feel like the one thing when you're playing distilled, you should be drinking whiskey. And if I if, if I can, if I can, I will. I'm usually the driver, so I'm not. You haven't got a car in the UK? Says no I don't. So I just don't drink whiskey. But that's a whole story from my child. From my childhood, my teenage No worries, no worries. So that's distilled is my game. So those are our games, right? So that's Darwin's journey and distilled 2023. Those are our games.
Now we're going to move on to our favorite episode. Episode Episode first. You're going to go first. So we go through quite a few episodes. In 2023, there were some notable guests. Obviously, we can't forget Craig get into games. Don't forget he's just gone live with his first podcasts. Get the games on air. Episode one went live yesterday or over the weekend, whatever the days is. Check that out. We had Adam from Table dot
vibes. He had some fun with those guys talking about Halloween and Christmas. We had Carl with Kelp, is that right? Yes, Carl Kelp. That's right. Carl 2K. And then, but my my favorite episode was having Dan Halligan from Obsession on the show talking about the Kickstarter that went live however many moons ago that was Now feels like forever. I know, but it was only three months. It was. Only three months it was, which
was the character's expansion. If you haven't listened, it is one of the most popular episodes we've done. Huge response to it. It was episode 57 and obsession with obsession for the Board Game, an interview with Dan Halligan. At that point there was a couple of secrets. Not secrets, but early reveals he gave us, which was an absolute privilege to hear about. He's just an awesome guy, just shared the passion of obsession with us.
And has anyone's been listening to his show for the last 50-60 episodes? Knows that we've talked about this game no end. So having Dan on the show was an absolute highlight of the year. And one day maybe I'll get to pay Obsession with Dan. But for now, yeah, it's just a dream. So you can play with him. On BG online. Yeah, I don't know. It's not the same. Thing not the same.
And we need to catch him before he moves to Utah, which is, you know, that's a long way to the West from where we are. So because he's because he's getting ready to move, he's moving, yeah. It's right isn't he's moving to Utah? Pretty soon, so, OK, He was kind enough to let us know that, so yeah. So that was my favorite episode. How about you, PJ? It was A. Good episode. It's in my top two. To be fair. And like you said, we did have some great guests.
Let's not forget that we had Dennis Ordinary Board Gamer on. Good point, early in the year. We we also had our dear friend, my adopted little sister Gosia, wingspan girl from Poland. She was on so first her world premiere as it were. My favorite episode had to be was the episode with Matt and Zara from Mazzaza Games when they talked about their Kickstarter, their game on Kickstarter, Kavango. It was my #2, and I wasn't sure which of us has had obsession.
We came out good because that was a cracking episode. The beauty of that was the conversation was just it was so incredible because yes, we talked about their board game that they were working on and everything that went through it. But we had this amazing conversation just about, you know, climate change and conservation and all the elements that are in this board game. But we all as members of the human race deal with and that I could listen to. Matins are for hours and I just.
Love them, I mean, I think we finished recording and then carried on talking to them for another. We did. 45 minutes. We did Episode 52. 52A Conservation Conversation. Right. Yeah, that's. One of the best titles we've done this year. I think it really is. Gavango Ball game completely agree. PJ is a cracking episode. So good. I've had the privilege to play that game. We have a copy here, so not only was the conversation great, but the game is also a. So we have to add that to Cajun
Con because I have not played. Another one, a list. Yep, so everyone who's listening to this episode, I hope y'all are keeping a list of all the games that have to be played a Cajun Con. You know, we're going to get through like two of these and two, or there'll be 5 new games that we've not talked about that have appeared. Because I'm going to. I'm going to run my mouth city. Of silver be just a flash in the pan for January. OK, so last but certainly not least is the M and gems.
And that is your favorite moment moment 2023. And this could be this is open, it doesn't. You know, I think we're both game related, but. Yeah, mine's game related now. I thought about, I mean UK Games Expo. We've been to some really nice smaller cons this year. I think we had the one back in January that Jenny or February Jenny arranged and there was Nick's birthday shenanigans Scoot con.
But the one, the most recent fun the gaming experience is whenever I get a chance to play Twilight Imperium. So we played twice this year with the same nearly the same Group One We had one one man down in December, but we got together with the South Anson Gang two weeks ago, the week between Christmas and New Year. We rolled up at 1:00, set the game up in half an hour and then we wrapped up about, I think it's about 10/10/30. And I can see now it felt like I
sat there for an hour. Someone looks at me and says to me, oh, it must be the worst thing ever, but just a group of people and but just the game flows. It's so quick, but it's not quick because it's like 10 hours, but because every action you take, nearly everyone else could do something. You're never really sat there doing nothing. You're always talking, You're negotiating, you're scheming. We end up having the boards
divide into two. There was the Rainbow team, which was me, Diz and Gareth on 2/3 of the board and it was Chris and George. The team Orange that turned into some basic 2 factions and it didn't matter what they were. They were allies. And we mean this. We we we were very kind to each other. There was no PDS disruptions this year. Remember PDS and. There's none of that.
We were friends, we sat in peace and we took out the other side and and I'm going to check the scores on the doors, so this one with 10 first of 10310. Win. George and Gareth with a respectable 8 at me. The other Gareth at 7:00 with Chris 7. That was it. It's just those moments that it it just flies. It's a treat to play because you don't get a chance to play those games very often. I don't know why I ever thought I'd get four games in. I mean, I I'd love to. That's one 1/4.
It requires a lot of people to clear Diaries out and other partners and friends and family and babysitters to people. Correct me if I'm wrong, that is a minimum three player game, right? Yeah, I I haven't traded it. I've been We've only played it 6:00 and 5:00. We've thought about getting the expansion that moves it to 8:00, but that then sounds like it's going to be a whole day. But yeah, just one of those epic games that I love to play. And Twilight Imperium. I love it.
I'll bring, I'll bring, I'll bring it to the Cajun Con and we can just pretend that we played it. Yeah, we could pretend. Bring Twilight Inscription. We can we can play that. We can play. We can add that. We can add that to the list. You're listening and you're going to come to Cajun Con. While on Inscription, add it to the list. I do need numbers. I need to work out how big, How big. I've I've got three things
written down. I've written Twilight, Etherium, Twilight, Imperium, and Swelling. Oh, Nemesis, Nemesis all in. All in. Six players with Santa hats. We've we backed the new retaliation. Yep. Yep, we're going to. Get that? OK, so my moment from 2023 and Oh my God, there's so many of them. OK, so here's the one thing. All the moments when I was thinking about the one thing they all have in common is it's the people, right?
It's it's members of the gaming community right there was it was going to geek way right And meeting up with Heather Dixon who is working out Apostocracy getting to play that with her again. There was there was interviewing Zach Koontz with with his game. He was. We featured him when I was recording where you and I learned about recording on location and the challenges
thereof. Then there was meeting everyone at there was meeting the treasure Belle, Michelle, my, my lovely, another adopted little sister up in Canada who we I worked with wise wizard games at Origins, that's right. And then Gen. Con where I met so many people. Three episodes? Yeah, download. Episodes. Three episodes.
And I'm not going to try to list everybody because there was just so many of you and I don't want to offend, but for me the highlight moment was in September when our good friend Diz the Twilight. Period. The winner? Twilight. Period. Free, who flew from England to the United States and stayed with us for a week. Just to play games. Just to play games, you know, We showed her around a little bit, but we got to play a lot, I think 11 games over the course of like 4 evenings after Katie
and I got home from work. That was just a treat, you know, to to have a friend from overseas stay with us and to talking to and getting the game, playing dinosaur world with her, because that was like how that was where she and I wasn't. It. She and I connected separately from you, independently from you over dinosaur world and then I learned that she was in your group and you know, everything just kind of snow up. That was a really great moment.
I look forward to more of those moments where my friends from England come to visit and stay with me. Anybody wants to hang out with PJ? Don't figure out I need to know your names. Message me. Put a message anywhere. Yep. I just remembered we forgot one person who did a really good show for us, John Triwing Games. Yes. Essence Special. Are people on the ground? Thank. You on the ground? Yep. Yeah. I think. I mean those episodes with UK Games Expo and we had all the
contributors there. We had two contributors from Gen. Con or See John connected to vocals and sound bites from Essen. Those were good episodes. We'll be doing more they. Really were. I keep hearing consistently that those are some of the favorite episodes from our listeners, just as you know and I get it, I love it. If you remember, I think it was when you and I first met and I went live with you on Meatball Monday 20/21, I think that was.
Whenever that was. I talked about the the vision I had of being ambassadors at gaming conventions and I think this year we did a pretty good job of that, you know, trying to do that. I'd like to see more. I wish I could have gone to PAX U or gotten someone to do some sound bites and recording at PAX UI. Love the idea of a meeple on the ground so that we can go to every convention, even when we can't go to every convention. You know I'm trying. To find out when the episode was
There you are. I found you. There I am. It was the 1st of November 2021. These were days when I wasn't so obviously I was a lot of free time. The episode was 2 hours and 40 minutes. You can find that on Instagram on my video highlights. Wow, 2 hours 40. I wonder what we spoke about. So we talked about everything. You weren't quite prepared for me. We talked about it's it's in the description. We talked about Louisiana cooking and board games.
Ball games and relationships. Flood and fire. Damages to game risk. Yep. Find someone to teach PJS. Only unplayed. Oh, that was some Star Trek game, wasn't? It that was Star Trek Fleet Captains New. Ideas. Instagram shows and content so. We we finally figured out how to play Fleet Captains. We played it. It's terrible. We sold it. We. Sold it convention ambassadors P JS pre gencom gathering of friends and then we talked about.
Oh, that's right. People who you'd like to visit which was me, Board dads, Titan spring game, Titan Games, which is the place in the year. Professor Meg Carly, who's now moved to the UK, is that one's. She's in Nottingham, Nottingham. Nottingham Boarding School with Brandy, Brandy, board game librarian, Marathon Meeples and the marriage, Marriage talk. Man, that's a long time ago. But you notice how we talked about board gaming conventions, ambassadors, We did.
The pre Gen. Con group was to get y'all from England to come stay here. In the house. Has it worked? Has it? Now you come over, you stay here for like one or two days, and then we all drive together to Indianapolis for Gen. Con because it's so close. So we need to. We'll need to plan and bring the kit to do a live podcast recording at Cajun Con, Cajun Con Live. So I'm prepared to do that. I've got the kit. I'll just bring my laptop. Just easy.
I've got a couple of pieces. And we do sound bites and we can have that as episode or we can have post Cajun, Cajun Con. You're going to bring the food with you. You're going to cook the food up for us all. Well, you know if y'all can. Provide a kitchen, yeah. You find me a kitchen, I'm a I'm a cook for you. Yeah. Yep. So. So, yeah. For those of you in England, that is April 6th on a Saturday
in 20. 20/20/24. That's so looking forward to 2024. We're looking forward to my visit anyway, That's pretty much it. That's the highlight. Of the year. I mean, it's, I think, what happens if the world. Ends. Like when we meet those things, you know, like, I can't do certain things because the world's just going to end. Like, I can't watch the Grease the film because I've ever watched it. That's the end. That's my view in life. OK, OK. Maybe when we meet there'll be
this and then we're. Going to play Nemesis, We're going to play Nemesis at twilight. Imperium. We're not playing Twilight Imperium for inscription is. What I meant to say we'll play Twilight in scripture. We can do that, Gareth. Thank you. This has been a great episode. I've really enjoyed it, but welcome. Back to 2020? Yeah. Back to broadcast 20/20/14. Yep. Everyone have a great new year. I can say for myself I want nothing but joy and happiness for all of you and as many games
as you. Keep on gaming. Yep. OK. Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks everyone. For listening, please subscribe. And as always, we'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas, so make sure to leave those in the comments. And don't forget, you can also chat with us both on Instagram at meeple to Meeple.