Welcome to Meeple to Meeple, uniting players around the world. A 30 minute exploration of PJ and Gareth 4 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. And welcome to another exciting episode of Meeple to Meeple. It is episode 84 and we are going to do a UKGE 2024 Games recap. As always, I am PJ.
And I'm Gareth back from the UK Games Expo. Oh my goodness. And you are just. You wore out, man. It's a busy, I mean, it was two days, well, an evening in a day. And I've decided that if you really work hard and you do a lot of steps and a lot of mileage, you can squeeze in buying, playing games, demoing and Instagramming into a day. But then I had two days of ultimate FOMO as I left Saturday morning and all of our friends played games. So yeah, I definitely would do.
We've we've already booked for next year and we are doing the four days. But it is, it was good. It was good. Can't believe it's been a week since we went. I know, right? I've got a few clips we can play from the Instagram crew. I've got a couple of overviews for a couple of games that I saw. You, you, you missed a good episode last week. Mr. Bosni. Yeah. Very interesting. Very nice artwork. Thank you to Adam for covering. He did a splendid job. You recorded that on the Friday?
Yeah. When I was at the show. You guys, you. Were at the show, yeah. And then we released it Tuesday. That worked nicely as well. That was good. That was good. No, that was good. So as you're testing out our fill in Co hosts? Working. Is still out if. Anyone else wants in? What was from your side of the Atlantic? What did you see on your Instagrams of the UKUK Games Expo that you thought was interesting? Oh man. So there were, there were two things I think that stood out for me.
The first one was just the stories. There were a lot of stories and and most of the stories centred around John. From. Trying in games. Yeah, John is always, wait, John, you could never lose. So the thing I liked about John is that he had his rucksack, not on his rucksack. He had a notice board. I had notice. Board a notice. For like schedules, of course, we had Instagram bingo going on. So every day, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, there was a different 9:00 to 12:00.
I think it was Instagram Mr. Hunt. And he had the little pins that he could stick things in and where he was supposed to be like for photo photo meet ups. It was really useful if you weren't quite sure what to be doing. And then he had like, I think it was a telescopic fishing rod, but it probably wasn't that with a red plunger. So when he was sat down in open gaming up with the plunger and they were ah, it's John. So. We talked.
About that, we talked about it last year, a couple of us in the community. We were a Gen. Con. We talked about putting up a like a little flag. Is it happens a lot in the UK? With like the people to people logo on it. So if I'm walking the vendor hall, you can see me and you can come run up and get a sticker or whatever, you know? So yeah, that's a good idea. The second The second thing that stood out from this side of the Atlantic was the game SETI by
CGE. I've just posted on my Instagram. Yeah, you did. I've seen a lot. It looks amazing. Yes, it was my, I mean for the heavy gamer in US, it was at all the meetings I had the one game I was just like, man, this, this is good for the rotating boards and it's kind of got two halves of the game. The first half you're kind of preparing. So you're upgrading your your different parts of the player board and at some point you will make contact with ET, but ET may not be nice.
ET could be bad. So you're never quite sure what you're going to encounter. And I think one of the ones, so I didn't get a full play because I had to have a time, but I got an overview was I think you make contact and they send you some, I don't know, messaging which you decode. But it, it's actually really bad. And so you, the you, we accelerate our technology capability, but it has a huge detrimental impact on the earth and the Earth, Oh, starts to go really.
So it's really, I mean, I didn't want to get too much into them, but I was like some different scenarios that play out. I think the surprise, maybe not the surprise, it's a pleasant surprise, was to find out that they continue to use that reward. Yes, like. Kutnahora. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. All of the demo staff had this wonderful purple Kutnahora T-shirt. And I asked. I said could I have AT shirt because I love the game and I got this look of know that for
stuff. What a silly question that was. But if anyone was listening from Czech games Republic, I still would love a purple Kunora T-shirt because they were they're very purple and had the had the the print on the front. So so that was good. So yeah, that's I think everyone who I've seen who got to play it went straight into their in their top three. I know Luke from Broken Meeple put it into his top three hotness again. It's much more on the heavier side, but Essen release 2024.
Yes. So you got to meet, you got to meet a lot of people and you did it. You did it in a short amount of time. Yeah, so we, so we rocked up Thursday after I had my epic work meeting, grabbed a beer and then hung around, hung around just waiting for the press event. So pumped into some new Instagram friends who I hadn't met before. And then we wandered around the press event. I think it's like 6:30 till 6:00 till 738. There's always too much to see.
Yeah, but I picked out a couple one one of the new releases at the show was Loot LOO OT and that's from the designer Charles Chevalieri. Oh, they can't print out my French who also designed Abyss. So that was a Hashtag Games release. I did get to play a game of it, but shall I play a short recording I had from Charles? Sound quality was at the press event, so he's a little bit tight. So I have tried to edit the audio, but let's listen to Charles. Yeah. My name is Charles.
I'm one of the two outers of lute. OK. The other one is Laurence Copier. That is not here, unfortunately. I'm coming from France. It's. You can hear it. So my English is not perfect, I do my French OK so. Lute is is we we work with Lohan on a lot of coloring game years ago and it was the centre of this game. It means that here you have something very tactic opportunistic, OK. It means that you place 1 Viking here.
You can place it near the sea, near the landscape or near another Viking. So it means that when you place here Viking, I open new territories for the other places. So then when I place it here, I can take for example, wood because it's a wood there. I can take some forts, buildings, tower, etcetera. And I put it here on my fuel, OK? Because the idea is that we are all achieved withdrawals of a clown of Viking, but we we are rooting England, for example, here together. OK.
And then when I place it here, if I have, for example, a landscape that asks me some fights here, 3 fights, I can do it here. And it means that the power, the the points from this building, OK, are upgrading OK. It means that at the start the points are here very lower and then more and more. So if you are good to choose the good resource, the good building and the good landscape, you can make it really great. And you becomes the child, the king. Of the weekend. Amazing. When is it?
When's this released? Now, now, now, here. Yeah. You come here to see Flavia or me on the on the the Bruce and I can show you, make some turn of the game. It's very rapid because it means that you play only 12 times. OK, so 12 times. Yeah, but in 12 times you can this. Yeah, the ball is full. And then you will see the difference between a good week if we can, not the bad one, the medium one. Just see how we get on with the weekend. Yeah, OK. Thank you for your time. Yeah, thanks.
So I had a game, the designer came over and said I was a bad Viking, wanted really badly. Now it turns out because I got halfway through and I was like, I'm not sure this is right, we're playing it right. But we had a teach from somebody else and I was like, you know, you feel a game is not being played. And I was like, these rules aren't quite for anyway. So we finished designer Charles said. Those are poor Vikings, Viking
scores. However, once I saw Sony bought the game and I was chatting to them, they're playing it and we realised we did one of the scoring elements role. But it's it's quite nice. You you only turn you put a Viking out, like Charles said. And then you either gathering resources or you're raiding and you pick those tiles up to put onto your own tile zone with its own specific scoring criteria. So it really it's pretty quick. Game looks pretty and game was
released at the expert. I've never heard of it until I got to the show. Wouldn't even know know nothing about it. So that was quite interesting. What else is it? A show. So I think what's interesting is that it's it's loot. Loot L00 0T loot. So it's interesting, 'cause I was like, is there a, is there a loot and then a loot? Or is it, or is it like there's, there's quite a few loot, LOOT, yeah, but it could be loot LUTE. But it isn't his loot, loot,
loot 'cause. You're playing as Vikings, not Pirates, right? Yeah. Yeah, playing as Vikings and you're working your way across the board and then you play some meatball next to any other or Viking. So as other people raid, it opens up more lands. So it's quite a bit of tactical movement where if I put this down, I'm now one step closer to probably something I need. So you don't put a Viking there,
you wait to try. And so that that's probably the the I guess the game of it is trying strategically, particularly four players get it right. But yeah, so that that was one, one game. So the other game go. Before, yeah, before you go any further, I think it's worth noting for everyone is that all these stories that you're telling us and that you're going to continue tell us you had your daughter in tow with you the whole time too. Yeah, we had Kira who whose job
was to carry bags. She was a mule. But she did, She did. She did good. She played all these games with us. Well, I'm trying to think what Cures Hollow would be. We should ask her. I should have got her to record a clip, which I haven't. You should. You should have. But yeah, there she she went off a couple of times and played games on a with some other other Instagrams that she knew out of the group. So yeah, she's always, always welcome, always comes along.
It's always good to have father daughter bonding sessions with gaming. So she's certainly like Lukasetti as well. Yeah, which is, which is good because it's a space game and Carrie might not play. Misses ball game. So you're going to need. You're going to. Need you're backup. Going to need backup. So after loot you saw what?
So I can say to my plays, so there was a Kickstarter a while ago called Warfarers Tale, which was a print and play game that again walking through the hall was they've turned that into full scale four-game, right? Which is coming out, I think Kickstart, I think later later this year. I've got a very short clip again, audio permitting, right? Hey James here, designer of the Wayfarers tale we've taken. The original, award-winning. Print and play, We've made it. Bigger. We've split it.
Up with his massive component. It's really tactile. It's got expansion material, it's got quests, it's got minis. Go back in. Told you it was short, the widow packet. So the game, the artist is Tristan Rossin. So just look up the art. It's really driving, really bright and colourful. The print and play was excellent. Rule funded really well, loads of extras to it. And this comes out it's just Kickstarter soon. I haven't even got a date. How useless of me.
But yeah, that's that's Wayfair, that's Wayfarer's Tale. So that was that was and then we played open gaming till about midnight and a game that we played a lot that evening, which again, I didn't know much about. I'm just going to go and get some details on. It was a game called Slide, which I didn't slide, which I didn't buy but wish I did. So it's it's a simple card game where everyone you got agreed of I think it's 4 by 4 all face down randomised.
And then you reveal all the players, reveal one and then depending on the player order. Oh yeah. If you get rotates, you take one of the cards and you slide it in one of the grids and if you have a card with the same number next to it, by the end of the 12 cards sliding in, you don't get any zero points. You want to get zero points, so you're trying to get pairs or triplets or quadruple cards together. So the end of game, you take
those away. Anywhere where you've got a single digit or or diagonals, you score those and that's bad. It's really clever. Check it out. Slides. OK, I think it's Hachette. I think it was another Hashette game. He says, looking here. Yeah, he's Gigamick. Yeah, which is Hashette in the UK anyway. Slide. So he played that quite a few times in the evening. What's the player count on slide? Slide is 2:00 to 6:00. 2:00 to 6:00. Yeah, we played six players. It was fun. It's good.
And that's what you look. It's a filler game, probably 15 minutes. So this would be this would be a great game for like if you were at a work conference and you have to. Throw out conference. Right. And they're not gamers, but they're looking for a. Little yes, absolutely. I'm going to look for this. Check it out. I got a work. I got a work conference this summer. Yeah, yeah, we had a lot of fun and they saw it's the box is like burgundy probably didn't
stand out to me too much. But then so Max Broadrunner came along with it, who demos for her Shep, and said check this out. And we're like, yeah, this is really good. I think Kira said that's the one game I wish we'd bought. Oh, wow. So. There's high praise right there. Next. That's Yeah, that is high praise. She really enjoyed that game. I think that's probably just going to look at my stats and see what other games we played that day. Yeah, we played that.
Was it just a lot games of slide and then it was Friday day of the show? There it is. So let. Me. Let me ask you a question. OK, So I've heard you and other friends of ours who went to the Expo and they talk about it. You just. So everything you just shared with us was Thursday? Thursday. And you're saying that's not the start of the show? That's that's press event. And then there's open gaming. So open gaming is I think it was 11:00 on the Thursday.
Obviously if some people go back to hotels, but we're all in different hotels, so. So, OK, so the reason I, the reason I'm, I'm, I'm harping on this is that both at Origins and at Gen. Con, the first day is Thursday. It starts 8:00 AM Thursday morning. Yeah, So, so at the UK Games Expo on Thursday, you have a press pass and you do everything you did, and then there's open gaming separately, just for everyone.
So yeah, everyone could because everyone could come and get tickets from high 5 S So people were collecting because what you don't want to do is on a Friday morning, collect your tickets because that might be an LQ. Yeah. And then the bring and buy opens as well, which this year was limited in terms of what you could drop off because I wasn't there a weekend I didn't drop off. But right. I hear lots of people saying it wasn't as good because it was limited.
A lot of people didn't bother or people are trading them on on Facebook groups, you know, those kind of things. So yeah, it was busy. People kept in tickets. And then we got to Friday. Usually Friday was a day where you could you could wander around. It wasn't too crazy compared to Saturday, which is mega, mega. And Friday was busy. Like, yeah, like, you wear your bags and, you know, people are in the way. It really was busy. So that's for every day.
That is every day at Gen. Con like that. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to hear you say that. Yeah. So basically what I'm hearing is that the games Expo is 3 days with Thursday. It's kind of a press day if you've got a. Yeah, pre, pre, pre. It's like a warm up, a warm up, OK. The Friday I would say was people go to get the games and then by the afternoon it definitely quieten down. So I think you've got your gamers who have got in, got some stuff and then going to sit
down. And then the Saturday is more the general public and it's I mean, I wasn't there, but I heard he was epic. And then someday he's always he's always the quietest day. And that's probably I think I'm saying this to Nick at Broad Game of UK next year press event Open gaming. Do what I did this year, work and do some Instagram stuff, meet some gay people for demos, played. We were up to about 2:00 AM on the Saturday morning and play games.
And then Saturday, if I was there, I would have just played games, open gaming or in the hotel. That's it. No shopping or no wandering to shut the trade halls. And then someday I'd go back in and do those interviews I did, but where it's much quieter so you get a bit more time. So do I guess Instagram or?
Check out some games I just couldn't get anywhere near in terms of demo stands because he's just so he was so busy on the Saturday. So when you were when you were talking to these guys and doing these recordings, I know you've got the two wireless lapel mics, were you using those? Yeah, that's yeah. But it was so noisy, yeah, that you hear me? You hear the recordings from the Instagramers where they they weren't in the in a press event,
the quality is so much better. So I need to think about because in a, in the press event, the space is just like literally lines of tables and you're about a metre apart from the next person. So there's so much interference, which is why I've been, you know, tried to remove some noise. But again, a good a good experiment, but separately it's much easier on the.
Stands I I bring that up because at the last, at the last conventions where I had recordings, I had people record when they came home where it was quiet. It's a good. Idea. Yeah, yeah. I've never tried to do what you did. Yeah. So it's interesting. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Let's see, I've got a few clips from Instagramers, so we've got some short ones. So I just asked some Instagram community to say what they were, what was the highlight of the game's Expo?
And this is a code. This is only on Friday evening, Friday afternoon, what they thought of the Expo. So first up, we've got Cassie from Spooky Meeples. Cassie. Hello, this is spooky meeples. My best thing about the show so far has been seeing all my friends. Beautiful. You see, I love friends. I love Cassie, she's so. Amazing. And I think you're, I think we said this last year, but you'll pick up a theme throughout these recordings. I've got another one.
Let's do looking for the recording which I cannot even see. I've found it to a person and Damian from Maples Abroad. Hey everyone, meatballs abroad here, Captain and Damian. We've had a great time walking around UKGE. And it's been great catching up with all the board game content creators, board game companies, seeing old friends and new. Our best part has to be sitting at the Open Gaming Arena playing board games with our Instagram. Crew. Beautiful in it.
Those are two guys I really would like to meet I. Oh, they're awesome. Yeah. Just doing when everyone I met has been awesome. I mean, they have got some epic giveaways. If you're not on Instagram or you go and follow Meeples abroad, they have a lot of gift ways that they've arranged on the back of that show. It was really it was really,
really good. I was trying to think what out of the games I brought home the the game we've that's been the biggest surprise is Salton Sea. So it's a De Vere game. Yeah. Which which on the box, it looks so innocent. It's about Geo geothermal energy production in the Salton Sea, which is between like the US and Mexico. And man, he is heavy.
I mean crunchy. Like I sat up and talk, talk Carrie. And then she was like, I don't know if I like this, not in a bad way, but like it was so because you have this mechanic where so it's worker placement looks all very nice, lots of work in lots of different zones and you have money, but the money's on the back of the card. Also an action that's a worker placement. So you can, you've got you've, I mean, money's hard to have. So you're obviously running a business.
So you play the card as an action, which you do get back at the end of the round. But that's, and the, the good one's like $5, it's gone $5,000,000, whatever it might be. So you're going now if I spend this money, then I'd use the action. But if I use the action, I haven't got any money. So you're just trying to eke out. It's like it's, it's, it's a really a workplace with economic game. You've got share slides and investments. It's beautiful, absolutely
beautiful. Highly recommend if you want a crunchy crunchy economic worker placement game Salton Sea and as ever but a devere game small box Rams Rams they bring with wooden components and. Which is going to be an episode we're going to talk about, we're going to talk about. Small games in. Small boxes, big. Games in small boxes. Yeah, yeah. So be on the lookout for that. That's coming up. That's not going to talk about it. And Devere is like the master, a big game in a small.
Box yeah, the the other game that I saw at the Hashette stands and at the press event was Middle Ages now. Tell me more. I didn't think it. I thought it was an awesome release because I saw it and then now I didn't get to play it because the key was massive and I was like, no, it wasn't on the hashette that stands. So I was like. So I crossed it off my list of not wanting it and in front of Hachette was Waterstones which is a big book shop who have gone heavily into games over the last
12 months. Big stand and right on their very front was Middle Ages and I was like. So I think it might have been a Waterstones exclusive for the show. Anyway, grabbed it because AI love Middle Ages are one of my favorite themes and it just looked beautiful. He's made it. I think it's the same designer as Splendor and his first game since Splendor, and we played it three times at the show. We played it about five times this week. It's it plays. Is it two to five?
I think it's two to five. I'll have to go and check. I think it's might be two. I think it's 2:00 to 5:00. He goes and gets the stats. I'm prepared for today. Yeah, two to five plays in about 30 minutes and about 2.25 wait. Each player's got a player board. There's I think there's 12 zones across it. So on the left hand side you've got your fields, then you've got like your windmill and then you've got like a village and then you've got I think the walls.
Then you've got your your marketplace, you've got your barracks, the church and the palace. So you're basically drafting tiles. So in a like four player game, there's five tiles. You put your your feudal Lord on the on the space. You pick the tile a bit like king domino. You're moving you're kind of mechanic 44 tiles per round, four rounds, end of each end of each four cards is a is a an event and you're basically trying to build it up.
But when you play that tile, it will give you something like maybe the fields. It gives you a coin for every every villager when you play the barracks, if anyone has got less walls in you then they have to give you 2 coins and they destroy the furthest the tile furthest out from the village
which often needs your fields. Which just like I guess you were going to go raiding, they would be the first things that get destroyed right to the palace, which gives you lots of money and gives you little upgrades to attach to your player board. Absolutely brilliant. Like everyone I've talked it to has just gone really enjoyable game. It plays fast. Yeah, we've played it 2-3 and five players, John try win games. Played it on the evening of the the Friday night and went all
out. I'm just going to build loads of barracks and we haven't really learnt the strategy, any strategy. So everybody just goes, oh, I've got a barracks. No one thought about maybe stopping John getting barrack tiles or maybe building walls is a good idea. So he's like every album he's getting 10 coins and you go, well, the game's broken. Well, no, no, it's not. I mean, just like in if you didn't build a wall and you let people raid, then they they're
going to take your stuff. So I tried it again in the two player game and I got my ass whooped because Carrie went all over Palace's upgrade and just outscored me even though I was trying to raid. So yeah, thematically brilliant art works great. I hope there might be some expansions. You can see the opportunity there is Middle Ages. I hope. I hope it's out of Gencom for you guys. I hope so. According to Hashet Games US, it'll be released July 24th. That's.
Not long. That's OK. So Gen. Con, it'll be OK, wouldn't it? Yeah, basically Origins. Well. Pre-orders will ship July 24th 2024. The origins is in two weeks, which is June it. Won't be for that. June 19, Yeah, but it should be there for Gen. Con, hopefully. Yeah, so, yeah, so. So that was Middle Ages. Who else can we listen to? Right, because met a lot of people during open games. Got a few. So there's Jack. So Jack is the son of May, which I think is play together board gaming Jack.
I asked Jack what his highlight was and this is what Jack had to say. We had a few false starts on the recording. This these are these are the highlights of the recording I've had to edit, but it was good. OK. What was the highlight of UK Games Expo today? Best thing? Best thing? Yeah, I know what highlight means. I do a flashback instead. Terraria of award games. Why? Why? Because. Because, well, I like to Terraria and and just the gameplay seemed interesting. Pretty good summary.
I mean. Terraria is on is on Kickstarter right now. The game they had a a big presence. I mean, he did look, I mean, if you've played the computer game, then he had a good, you know, replication of it. Jack was super excited for Terraria and said what you said. Brilliant. I love it. Who's our youngest? Then we met Alex Pink Meeple. So here's some of the the new Instagramers who I hadn't met before. So for the first time this year. So let's hear what Alex had to
say. I'm Alex. I'm pink Meeple. My absolute highlight has been meeting all the Instagramers. I've loved walking around all of the stools and things. Alley Cat has been absolutely beautiful. Been meeting all the instagramers and playing games and I'm so sad that PJ isn't here. I'm, I'm, I really wish I I've met him. Well, thank you, Alex. I wish I had to meet you too. That was nice of her. It was nice of her I didn't, and I didn't pay her either.
I mean, it was not. There's no charges there. And then straight after meeting Alex, could you play Han or you got some guy golf? I've got an Alex story. So Thursday press day, she was waiting for her ride to pick her up from the hotel. So I'm guessing this is 4:00 in the afternoon. And she's like, I'm just so nervous. And I'm like, make sure you drink. You drink plenty of water.
She she get that? She sends me a photograph of her holding, like it's just her hand holding a bottle of water. She goes, I got it covered. I was like, you're going to be fine. I really am. I am. I am such a. Wound, Sir. He's the he's the fuel of an X, an expert. It's good. And then with Alex was Hannah. So Hannah has games. Let's see what Hannah had to say. I'm Hannah. I'm Han.
Han plays games on Instagram, and the highlight for me was meeting all of the Instagramers at the preview, especially pink meeple Alex, who buddied up with me for the evening, and then actually introducing my sister to everyone. She isn't in the online community, so we need to drag her in. But yeah, playing games with everyone, it's been amazing. Perfect, you see. That's awesome. I told Alex I was like, you need a buddy because it's her. It was her first convention.
I was like, find a buddy that you could just connect with and you know, you know, take your time, pace yourself. I've been getting a lot of questions on Instagram about, hey, this is my first Gen. Con. What do I do? What do I do? And of course, I tell every people, go listen to episode one of Meeple to Meeple. Go wow, that. Is what we. Pop on episode. That is what we talk about. But yeah, I tell everyone just
to pace yourselves, take time. If you've got to step away, you don't have to see everything and visit with everyone all at one time. Unless you're Gareth, who's trying to do it all in a day. And I absolutely would spread it out if I was. I was exhausted. So there was. So there was one stand that you all know well. So there was Paverson games, yes, which of course is one of your favorite games is the still. The still.
Dave or Dave Beck, who's the designer of that game is also demo was demoing showing Luthier with the show which is coming to Kickstarter sometime this year this. Year. This year. So Dave, give me an overview of luthier. Would you like to listen? I would love to listen. Are you kidding? Because like, I was super excited. I love the art, the print, the colours are so bold. All about musical instruments. Let's see what Dave had to say. Luthier is all about crafting
instruments. In the golden age of classical music. You play as a luthier, head of a luthier family, where you are going to be working and helping patrons, crafting instruments for them using a unique mechanic we like to call a hidden bidding worker placement, where all of your different workers or your family members on the bottom side of their disk has a number that kind of attributes to their skill. So you get to place that out on the board. You know what it is, but others
don't. So there's some hidden bidding worker placement. There's some area control with putting instruments in the orchestra itself, as well as some resource management in the engine building. It's a really heavily thematic game, just like this still was for us at Pay Version Games. This one, of course, is all about music researching, being historically accurate with over 40 different people from music history as well. Launches on Kickstarter on July 16th, and Vincent Du Trade is
the artist. We're really excited. We're going to offer some really deluxe upgrade options for those Kickstarter backers that like to see that too. Absolutely. Stunning up, right? Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thanks a lot. It's good. So we're going to do an episode one day and see if you can say it with me. Hidden bidding worker placement. Hidden bidding worker placement. Oh my God, that just. Sounds cool.
I mean I've it's the game that closest resembles it is a game called Francis Drake, which is a schemes is discs where you you put out where you're going to visit, which is kind of like when the order and I was like, that's feels like Francis Drake. But then it was you put them out on I think it was a it was a violin strings and then you flip them over. I mean artwork. It's so bold, colourful. The gameplay looked looked really nice.
Lots of different ways of scoring points, like get going somewhere 1st and getting being kicked out right. We will try and get them on the show, so we'll try and get that in before. Well, we got a month. Was it 16th of July? 16th of July. Two months ago and then. I will definitely see them at Gen. Con, so we should probably connect that quickly. So so Craig, Craig get into
games. Him and his wife, they did an Instagram Live where they had just finished visiting with Patterson looking at luthier and you chimed in. You you came in on his Instagram Live while you were at a table and it was very noisy. It it was impossible. I was like, that didn't work. I couldn't hear a thing. But. We could hear you because I was watching from home. So you were playing a game. It looked like you were three-dimensional like. Yes, Yeah. I'm just going to get the image
because I've never forgotten. So it was from Hashtag Games. OK, you were cats. Nekojima, NEKOJIMAIIMA, Nekojima, basically your cats. I'm sorry. You are building these wooden poles which are like Telegraph wires. And then there's wires, string in different colours and you roll the dice and you have to put, you pick up one of the two bits of string, bits of string with two poles on it, all different lengths and you stack them up. So it's the dexterity game.
I'm a nightmare for it. And then sometimes you've got to hang the cats on the string. But like the strings can't touch other strings, you can't touch the ground, they can't hang out. It's a that's like buckaroo basically, but with bits of string and wood. And I really enjoyed it, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. So I decided to abandon abandoned my Instagram live with them. I wish, I wish people could see you. I'm sitting here watching you describe this game and your body is.
These games are like, they're my nemesis. Like I'm not very good at dexterity games, but it turns out I won something else. Well, there you go. Looked it all over. So yes, Alicia, go check it out. Yep, If you remember the last Be Fair episode for last that we had the raffle right at the end and I won a copy of Heat on the Sunday. I want a fixed raffle and I want a copy of distilled. So I was like, yes.
So I then sent all of the friend Gareth to get the bits of promo that I didn't have on the Sunday for me. So I had the complete collection. I love how I've I've backed distilled. I've been Greg and I have both been trying to get you to play distilled. I'll just go win a copy. Yeah, you win a copy and then you got an autographed card. But that will be. That's Gareth, Yeah, Yeah.
So you got me on by because I said to Gareth, go and see what promos there were and he got there and there was one promo left and the coins and then the new slightly more complex cards. Yeah. So yes, it was the last pack of cards until they was signing. Just signed it for Gareth. So that's nice. So I haven't played it yet, but I got to say punching that game put it away. That is some awesome storage. You. It is. Yeah, it is. It's a beautiful game, the artwork's beautiful.
You. Need you need to play. Yeah. It is, it is fantastic. It is fantastic. Well, ah, we've got another clip. So board game Weymouth and that's BORED that's. Dan and Page. Dan and Page, what a beautiful couple. Let's see what Bev got to say. So we are Paige and Dan from Boredom Games Weymouth. Boredom dot games dot Weymouth. You should probably get the handle right. So this has been our first UK games Expo.
We've only been able to do the 1 1/2 days, the Thursday night and the Friday. It's been brilliant, really, it's been good fun. Yeah, what's the hike? I think everybody's going to say it. But I think it's the people. We met some great people at Air Con and then we've met some great people again here. We met people at Cajunton and it's just growing that community and everybody's so friendly and welcoming and we've had a great time bumping into people and seeing, seeing lots of new
friends. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Yeah, Sitting down and playing games with people. It's been really nice this evening. It's been brilliant. They squeeze it in on a day and, well, a day and evening as well. Yeah, yeah, Super top. Dan and Paige are some of the most delightful folks ever. I I had the the they were kind enough to transport Katie and I from the hotel. That's right, Yeah. And. And so it gave us it gave us a
little bit of time. I mean, how much time do you really get to just kind of visit before the chaos of the gaming? But yeah, I did get to play. I got to play Terror Scape with Dan at Cajun Con. I don't think I got to play anything with Paige. So that's disappointing. I think I played Kundora. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure I did. I'm really thrilled, I'm thrilled that they made it and I hope more people get to meet
them because they are lovely. Yeah, we've got games today with them coming up here so. Good. Then late evening I sat with Brad. So of my under score shelf life. If you know Brad's account, he goes off a little tangent. So this is what Brad had to say. Random. Getting a tossit suit from the Tossit Germany. No that hasn't happened yet because I haven't jumped them, but that will be my highlight tomorrow. I. I don't know whether he jumped somebody for a tossit suit or
what the tossit suit looks like. Or whether there was. Even a tossit suit at the venue. But I don't know that that was Brad. So if you want some comedy in your life, go check out Brad at My Under Score Shelf Life. Shelf life. And we have one more from the other Gareth. Oh, so there's 2O GS, there's the original Gareth, and then there's the other Gareth. So they're both called the OG. So it makes it really confusing. It's here what Ice and Dice Games had to say.
Hi, I'm the preferable Gareth, also known as Ice and Dice games. I've just had a great time walking around meeting great people doing their favorite thing. Amongst everyone else doing their favorite thing. Playing games. Playing games beautiful. You know, that's that's that's definitely what everyone says. You hear that more and more as we really are as the tagline of our podcast, right as uniting players around the world. You definitely see that.
I think Gen. Con to a little bit and Essen for sure don't. So the reality is, while we're a community and this is a hobby, it's also a business. Yeah, yeah. And and Gen. Con and Essen are not necessarily the best place for us to connect and celebrate. It's business. It's business and IT. It's the business.
Based on what I saw here on this side of the Atlantic, I think Origins, which I'll be at in two weeks, is really similar in terms of size and the crowd and everything as the Games Expo. So and I'm really looking forward to that. It's also going to be Katie's first Origins. She's never been. Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't know that. So here's the funny part. She was a gamer before we met, right? So it's. Origins last year, didn't you? I did. I worked for Wise Wizard games.
Oh yeah, that's fun. Yeah, OK. 'Cause I worked with Treasure Bell and Danielle Reynolds, who I will see. OK, so that's exciting. Danielle Reynolds, her game caution signs. Oh yeah. It was a pre release at the Games Expo. It's going to be released at Origin. So we're going to try and get her on this summer. I saw her at Geek Way. She's got a busy summer so we're going to try to get her on the show soon as well, but it'll be Katie's first origins and I
think it's going to be lovely. Yeah, I think you should have a great time. It's going to be a lot of fun, so yeah. It's worth Danny Stranding posted and how different the UKGE was to US events. And then walking back on the Friday night midnight, there's about a 10 minute walk back to hotels and I was minding my own business talking to Kira and then with a couple of other friends. And then my friend goes, Hey, your other friend just walked past.
And this other friend was now with about a minute away and, and who was he? So it was Carly and Ross. And I was like, ah, it was just like, it was, I'll be running off them. So I think Carly spent the entire weekend just playing games and didn't get into the show and just chilled out. So everyone did their own thing. And I think that's that's important.
You do what you want to do. You know, I tried to get a bit of everything in, but if I had the other three days, I definitely would have had a day just chilled out in the hotel or chilled out in the open gaming, playing games to make the most of I guess the time we had there the. The thing that I noticed is for people who've never been to conventions before, there's a perception for whatever reason, ill or bad, that you have to do everything. And I really like somebody posted it.
I know that this community is so big. I wish there were more of me to go around just so I could keep in touch with everyone. It's a real challenge. I spend most of my weekends just touch and base with everyone and it's like, but you can experience the convention at your own pace. You can do whatever you want. It doesn't make you a bad gamer, a good gamer, one is better than the other. I think our community is coming around to that more and not succumbing to the pressure of I
have to do everything now. You and I are sadists and we must enjoy pain so we try to do as much as we can in a short period of time as possible. Which I guess makes me kind of a hypocrite because I tell people they don't have to and then I try to do it so. You just you just test it to make sure that your advice is sensible because you've got first hand experience and how silly is to try and do to try and do all of it. I think it.
Really is. I certainly, I guess because we did squeeze a day in. I then saw pictures of stands and games that I just must have missed, which is often what the Sunday is like. You then start reading the socials, you read people's reviews. You're like, man, where was that? And you've like, we'll pass it three times because either it's been surrounded by people or just you can't, you know, there's so much to look at and see. It is a fantastic, you know, few days.
So what was the highlight for you? What's so let me? Let me let me say I didn't. Play many games with the highlight. So I hadn't played a game. In fact we didn't play. I didn't play any games on Thursday. It was five was on Friday. I left Thursday without playing games because I was spending too much time talking to people and watching other people play games.
So Kira's playing games. But at one point Flavian from Hachette called me over to look at a game that's that's not released yet and got my opinions on. So I spent half an hour talking about that. So I just end up socialising and I found that throughout the throughout the weekend and it's what everyone else said. So not weekend of the Thursday, Friday, even in the press event, I kept bumping into people who we knew and just spent to spend time catching up. And that's the highlight is
still the community. I think I said it last year, it's crazy that a lot of people we met through Instagram, through COVID times and we've stayed close, whether they're from this country or from it's from Holland's or from Germany or from from Belgium or from the UK, you know, we've got a great community on Instagram and long may it continue.
Yes, Yep. So for those of those of you who are listening to this, I know a lot of you wait and binge a bunch of episodes on the way to some of the conventions. So those of you who are going to Origins and are listening to this at that time, I will be at Origins on Friday. We will be there probably about 8:00 in the morning. We're there for the whole day. We've only got one event
scheduled, so be on the lookout. I have, I have new stickers, yes, because I knew I was going to be at Origins for one day. So I've got new stickers to give out to everyone. And then whatever's left over, I will be giving out a Gen. Con. I'll be there on the Sunday of Gen. Con, the last. Day. Oh, see. Is. There bingo? Is there a bingo at Gen. Con? Because I was like Friday surprise.
No, so that's, that's something unique in the UK, America, at least in what I've seen so far make it we could do the bingo. You could do it. Well, I think the bingo should be is that everyone has to find me and take a picture with me. This. Year. Oh yeah, I had that. People are hunting me down. PJ told me to find you. Where are you? I'm hiding here. It was fun. It was really good fun. So when to Origins is next? Two weeks away. Origins Origins is 2 weeks away.
And you're there. Which day? That is the Friday. You're there this Friday, and there's Jenkins. You're there on the Sunday. I'm there on the Sunday, August 4th. We do have a hotel room, so we're staying overnight just for the sun. So we'll be there all day Sunday, but we'll be available Sunday evening for anyone that you're still around, and then we're going to drive home that day, so. Yeah, we we talked about maybe staying the Sunday night every day. Oh. You it's it's worth.
Like, like people, people say to me, they're playing games right till like 11:00 on Sun on Sunday evening and then they went home Monday morning and I was like, actually it's not a bad idea. Absolutely squeeze the most. Because you have what? It's a three hour drive. Right, two hours. Two hours. Yeah, See, I think you should do that. Yeah. You should definitely do that. So I hope you enjoyed the episode. Thank you PJ for listening to my
Tales of the UK Games X-ray. Thank you for sharing everybody. Hearing your tales from origins in a couple of weeks time. And so one last piece of housekeeping, of course, we have a, we have a bonus episode that's going to be dropping after this one same day. So when you're done listening to this episode, there's a bonus episode that I recorded a few
days ago on my own. I talked with Ren Multimacki from Dragon Dawn Publications. We're talking about his new game that's coming to Kickstarter this summer, Verdun. He was kind enough to give me. And so we're sharing it with all of our listeners now. If you go to ddpgames.com, ddpgames.com. So Dragon Dawn Productions, right, ddpgames.com. And you enter the discount code for listeners of this podcast only. It is meeple to meeple with the number 2.
You'll get a 10% discount on all products On his website. He's got several games. Listen to the bonus episode and you'll hear his story. It's only like 20, 22 minutes. Also there was a little hiccup in the recording, so there might be really, really early on it might seem like there was a cut. We tried to do it recorded appropriately, but Gareth's a whiz. He'll edit. It see how my cutting editing skills are later, yeah?
So I apologize for that, but again, that's that's Renmulta Mackey from Dragon Dawn Productions. Meeple to meeple is the it's all one word with the number two in the middle. That's the discount code. You get 10% off of anything at ddpgames.com. So check that out and. Yeah, good work. Well done, PJ. Thanks everyone for listening
and we'll see you soon. 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.