Games People Play: TantrumCon & Snow Storms

Fourteen inches of snow on a sheet of ice set the tone for a month of chaos—school closures, missed plans, and a toaster scare. We needed a reset, and found it in the most focused place imaginable: a four-day, 1,200-person board game convention where creativity, patience, and play run the show. We dive into TantrumCon from a first-timer’s view and a veteran’s lens, exploring what happens when you trade notifications for rulebooks and sit with strangers who become teammates.

We share the magic of learning straight from the source: playing Castles of Mad King Ludwig with its designer, testing a confidential prototype, and hearing how themes emerge from mechanics rather than the other way around. An independent designer walked us through pitching to publishers and building elegant systems around insects, flowers, and stables—proof that the best tabletop experiences are crafted, revised, and loved into being. Along the way, we unpack how tiny icon tweaks and balance passes can transform a session from swingy to satisfying.

Community is the secret engine here. Retirees, teens, military flyers, families on staycation—everyone shows up to think together. We talk about the volunteer teachers who make intimidating games approachable, the secret meetup that turned invisible ink into alliances, and the quiet relief of a space where politics and hot takes give way to shared goals. Not everything sparkles: we call out the co-op “quarterback” who drains joy and the mid-game doomscroller who misses the whole point. Presence matters, and games reward it.

Then the fun arguments: worker placement vs bidding, push-your-luck as exposure therapy, social deduction as a masterclass in reading people. We gravitate toward grounded themes—nature, parks, castles, Sherlock mysteries—where art, facts, and clean design lift the table. Space epics rarely hook us, but great systems can win converts. We end with practical takeaways for your next con: schedule breathing room, try designer-led sessions, and pick at least one game that scares you a little.

Hit play to travel from ice to insight, from rules to relationships. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—what mechanic or theme are you obsessed with right now?

Chapters

• 0:01 Snow, Ice, And Disrupted Routines
• 7:40 School Closures, Family Banter, And Stand-Up Class
• 12:18 Introducing TantrumCon And The Board Game Scene
• 18:10 Designers At The Table: Learning From Creators
• 26:35 Diversity, Community, And The Joy Of Play
• 33:20 Social Events, Secret Meetups, And New Favorites
• 40:05 Pet Peeves: Know-It-Alls And Phone Scrollers
• 46:05 Game Lengths, Mega Tables, And Visual Design
• 53:10 Mechanics We Love And Loathe
• 1:00:20 Themes: Nature, Castles, And Space Apathy
• 1:07:10 Travel Notes, Venue Quirks, And Walkability

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another edition of the Hey Are You Still There podcast. Welcome back, Beth. Well, thanks. It's been a while since you've been on the show. Do you need to reintroduce yourself to everyone?

SPEAKER_01: 0:12

No, I think they know who I am.

SPEAKER_00: 0:14

I don't know. I mean, you've been gone a while.

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

Well, I haven't been gone. I was just like, um, there was some family illness. I was like working. I mean, there's it's not like I've traveling. Yeah, but like some a lot of the weekends that you did it, it wasn't because I was tra we had the ice storm. I mean, I was here, I just couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Well, we won't spend a lot of time on the ice storm, but you you're a snow lover. So what did you did you enjoy the snow that we had? Because here where we're at locally in North Carolina, we got between 12 and 14 inches of snow, which is a lot for us. That's probably more snow than we've gotten combined in the last seven or eight years.

SPEAKER_01: 0:52

Um, it was very mixed because the problem was the snow would have been 100% wonderful and perfect if we had not had an ice storm just before it. But the snow fell on top of about an inch thick of just solid ice. And so, like trying to go like walk in the snow and things like that, you just had to be so careful because there was solid ice under the snow. So normally, like what I love about snow is I love, you know, going for a walk and you can walk in the middle of the road or whatever because no one's out driving and it's very quiet and it looks clean and it's beautiful. But because this fell on ice, it was just really, really difficult to feel safe.

SPEAKER_00: 1:33

And like you're not as young as you used to be. So I mean a slip now would really break some bolts.

SPEAKER_01: 1:38

Yeah, that's true. Right. But also trying to shovel the driveway when it was like pure ice. So we then even, if you tried to get rid of the snow, there was ice under it. So I mean that but the snow itself was beautiful. But the problem was that that was like what it was. You could enjoy it, I think most of it fell at night. And it was a very dry, fluffy snow. So like you couldn't easily make like a snowman or anything. Um, but and it was beautiful. But then, you know, too, the other thing that happens with all that is so then like a day or two in, you end up we had an ice, then snow, then another layer of ice because everything kept melting and refreezing. So it was kind of mixed. I mean And it's still hanging around. Yeah, it's still out there making everything mushy and yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:26

And this Wednesday is supposed to be 70 degrees. Which is just ridiculous. Which is nuts.

SPEAKER_01: 2:31

Yeah. Makes no sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:32

Yeah. So we have a foot of snow on whatever that was, January 1st, I'd say. And then by January 11th. I mean, it's a big deal. February first.

SPEAKER_01: 2:43

I was like, we're not on the five.

SPEAKER_00: 2:44

February first, we had like a foot of snow, and then by February 11th, it's 70 degrees.

SPEAKER_01: 2:48

Yeah. Crazy weather. But the other hard. No, I didn't say that. The other part is our kids, well, Josh, the high schooler missed literally two weeks of school. He missed a week because of the ice, and then we had the snow the next weekend, and he missed a whole week because of that.

SPEAKER_00: 3:06

I asked Josh today when I dropped him off, I said, Do you even know what class to go to? And he said, I don't have a clue.

SPEAKER_01: 3:11

Because it's been so long. And they have like A-day, B day, and stuff a block schedule.

SPEAKER_00: 3:15

So one of his uh classes on his, you know, they flip classes every day, but one of his classes is right near the entrance. So his plan was to go into that class first. If it was supposed to be his class, he'll stay. If not, he'll turn around and go back out to his other one. Yeah. That's how he was going to figure it out.

SPEAKER_01: 3:32

I'm sure that they probably sent something that he didn't read.

SPEAKER_00: 3:35

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 3:36

Yeah. So that I'm I'm positive that happened. It's not like he just sh would show up and they'd just be like, sorry, kids, we don't know where you're going.

SPEAKER_00: 3:45

Do you feel like you send the kids a lot of stuff they don't read?

SPEAKER_01: 3:48

Yes. All the time. Regularly. Every day. Dissertations that I write and they ignore all of it. Too long. I've told you that. Okay, even when I send short stuff, they ignore that too.

SPEAKER_00: 3:57

Because usually it's linked to how social media is bad for you or earbuds are bad for you. It's like, you know, it's the you're gonna die.

SPEAKER_01: 4:05

No, I send them things like, hey, what about this? Or this is how uh did your taxes, whatever. I send imported stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 4:12

I think they respond to did your taxes.

SPEAKER_01: 4:14

Yeah, they did.

SPEAKER_00: 4:14

How much am I getting?

SPEAKER_01: 4:15

How much money am I gonna get? Yeah, they do. They definitely respond. So I'm gonna now I'm gonna try to sprinkle that in. Like, I'm not telling you unless you answer this question.

SPEAKER_00: 4:24

Just send them a text and say, call me, I may have some money for you. Yeah. And then when they call, be like, talk to them all you want, and then at the end be like, Oh, by the way, I was wrong. I didn't make any money.

SPEAKER_01: 4:33

Yeah, I'll try that next time. Beat and switch. Yeah, I'll definitely get on that.

SPEAKER_00: 4:39

I mean, that's all I got you, right? Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. I appeared to be one thing when I first met you, and then the old switcheroo.

SPEAKER_01: 4:45

Isn't that what every couple does? Yes. Yes. You beat and switched me big time. Oh, yeah, I'm sure I did. No, you did. I think you knew what you were getting.

SPEAKER_00: 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 4:56

I was in the market for a hot mess.

SPEAKER_01: 4:58

And you got it. I got it.

SPEAKER_00: 5:00

Yeah. A brilliant, beautiful hot mess.

SPEAKER_02: 5:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:03

So you just got home from your first ever multi-day large board game convention called Tantrum Con.

SPEAKER_02: 5:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 5:14

This is an event that I've gone to. This was my fifth TantraCon. They've only had nine of them, so I've I've obviously missed the first four. But um it's put on by a group of well, now it's a company called Tantrum House, uh, a group of friends that went to college together. Um they all live around Greenville, South Carolina area together. Greenville, Fort Mill, I guess, that kind of area. Uh I don't know, Spartanburg, somewhere around there. Um the high country or whatever it's called there in um Upstate.

unknown: 5:44

Upstate.

SPEAKER_00: 5:45

I mean that's what they call it. The upstate of South Carolina. Which, by the way, I'm gonna upset some people. Let me just say this. Don't you consider South Carolina kind of the basement of North Carolina? I mean, do you think North Carolinians look down on South Carolinians?

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

Parts of South Carolina. There are parts of South Carolina that are really, really nice. It just depends.

SPEAKER_00: 6:07

It's kind of like North Carolina. Name some parts that are really, really nice.

SPEAKER_01: 6:10

Um, Charleston, Kiowa, Seabrook Island, Hilton Head.

SPEAKER_00: 6:15

Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna point out something. You just named essentially three places that aren't physically attached to South Carolina.

SPEAKER_01: 6:23

Uh their island.

SPEAKER_00: 6:24

You know what I'm saying? They're just they're there.

SPEAKER_01: 6:26

Greenville, isn't that the city that I went to years ago that has the waterfall going through? That's nice, yeah. It's really nice. Yeah. I mean, so there's a nice town. There's some cool stuff in places. So it just depends. It's kind of like though, if you go through parts of North Carolina, too. Like there's some stretches when you're going Are there any bad parts of North Carolina? Yes. There's those stretches when you're on the way to the coast, and it's like I always get sad when I drive through them because there might just be some pine trees and swampy sand, and it just looks sad because there's not a lot of like vegetation or I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 7:02

Sad is how I would describe my daughter right now, who's walking around right beside our studio making all kinds of noises. She's wearing a t-shirt that says world's greatest father, and it has a picture of Shrek on it. Except father is marked out and it says farter. World's greatest farter. Yep. That's the attire my 20-year-old daughter wears around the house.

SPEAKER_01: 7:24

Yes. As she comes in and makes a lot of noise and probably just woke up to get ready for breakfast.

SPEAKER_00: 7:30

She looks sad.

SPEAKER_01: 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:32

Because she has to go to school today.

SPEAKER_01: 7:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:33

Good for her. Get her out of my house. Get her doing some stuff. You know what? Speaking, we'll come back to TantrumCon. This is a very side. You know what I remembered I have tonight? Stand up. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:43

You haven't had that because of the weather.

SPEAKER_00: 7:44

Well, one week was snowed out.

SPEAKER_01: 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:46

And then last week, we already had scheduled an off night because the guy who teaches the class was going to be out of town. Oh, okay. Gotcha. So it's been three weeks since I've been. And so um I gotta go, I gotta get my homework. I I've I've procrastinated. I was up I was supposed to have written a five-minute story about my life. Oh, that'll be just to tell about myself.

SPEAKER_02: 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:09

He said it doesn't have to be funny, just five minutes, because what he wants us to do is to get used to writing out a five-minute bit that we can get up there when we have our show and do a five-minute stand-up. And so I think this is his way of all right, let's let's write, let's get you working on and writing up to where you know how much five minutes is going to be.

SPEAKER_01: 8:31

Interesting. That should be fun. I think I can do that. And challenging.

SPEAKER_00: 8:34

I could talk five minutes without notes, I feel like.

SPEAKER_01: 8:36

Yeah, I could too. But the problem is then you just don't know. It's like a talk I gave for a thing at work, um, and they wanted me to stick in a time frame. I can talk, but if I want to make sure that I cover very precise points in that time frame, I do need to kind of practice that and piece it out in my mind. Because what you don't want to do is waste five minutes on something that's not as fun and interesting, and then you're like, oh, I've only I mean, waste um four minutes on part of it, and then you're like, oh, I'll only have one minute for the good stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 9:07

Yeah, I think I have a five-minute bit already. Oh, like I think if he was like, come tonight with a five-minute joke. You'd be ready. Um I'm ready. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 9:15

About your family. Yep, about my family. All about it. I know. I figured we were your inspiration.

SPEAKER_00: 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:23

Um so anyway, I have stand-up class tonight. So we'll update everybody on that at some point.

SPEAKER_01: 9:30

Well, that's the only thing about this snow and everything being disruptive for two weeks. It was like you don't I mean, I still had work and stuff, but like church, you know, of course. We didn't have church for two weeks. Yeah, we didn't have like, yeah, so you didn't have church, you and you kept having a chance.

SPEAKER_00: 9:46

We had church yesterday, but we were out of town. Yeah. We were at Tantrum Cotton. So we haven't been the church in three weeks.

SPEAKER_01: 9:52

Right. And then like Josh was supposed to get his driver's license the week of the ice storm, and the DMV was closed. And then we rescheduled that, and he was supposed to go another day um last week, and then the DMV said it was, quote, unsafe road conditions to do the tests. And so he didn't get to do it then. So it's just like a lot of it's been a lot of disruption and kind of confusing because I'm just like, where did January go? Because that's the other thing when I looked and I'm like, we are, you know, what day is it? I don't even know the day. I mean, I know the day, but February 9th, we're well into February.

SPEAKER_00: 10:26

All right, so this Friday is Friday the 13th. Dun-dun dun. Yeah. So that means Saturday is Valentine's Day. Yes. I feel like we just had New Year's Day. I know. And it's already Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_01: 10:38

I know.

SPEAKER_00: 10:38

What are you getting me?

SPEAKER_01: 10:39

Nothing. You know, I don't like Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_00: 10:41

You know what? We're gonna have we're actually gonna do two podcasts this week.

SPEAKER_01: 10:44

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_00: 10:45

This one is making up for the one last week we didn't get done because we're at TensionCon. And um, we're gonna go ahead and do another one that'll come out on Saturday. And I might try to come up with some romantic themed stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 10:55

So good luck with that. I'm like the least romantic person ever. You've told me that. I and so Valentine's Day is not like um, I just think it's told you that, like you've acknowledged that. Well, yeah, I'm just yeah, I'm just gonna Valentine's Day just seems like it was made up for the Hallmark cards and flower industry to like have something to do in the winter.

SPEAKER_00: 11:20

You know, like it's just so your way of boycotting the Hallmark industry and the big candy is I'm not gonna big flower. I'm gonna boycott it by not acknowledging my marriage and my husband on that day.

SPEAKER_01: 11:35

Do you know what this is the equivalent of you and your Christmas cards and not liking them? That's the way I am with Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_00: 11:42

But here's the difference. I still give you gifts, I still put up a tree.

SPEAKER_01: 11:46

You don't put up a tree at Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_00: 11:48

No, I'm seeing that Christmas. I still do everything Christmasy, even though I may not be in it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:55

Like, but so I'm just saying Okay, I will try this year to do a Valentine's Day gift.

SPEAKER_00: 12:01

I don't even care about a gift.

SPEAKER_01: 12:02

Okay, I'm I know. Okay, a card. I'll make a card. I'll cut out a construction paper card. It's you love cards so much. I'll make one. And and I won't mail it. So then I'm not, you know, wasting postage or the the post office's time, but I'll make a card. I'll get on.

SPEAKER_00: 12:19

We'll definitely dive in deep to Valentine's Day on this week. Yeah. The later in the week when we do our normal schedule podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 12:26

Yeah. Good to know.

SPEAKER_00: 12:27

We're back from TantrumCon. Um and I got off way on a side tangent. But so Camp TantrumCon was started uh by a group of friends. They would get together for board game nights. Um this is quick the 30,000 flyover. Uh they started having kids, kids are blowing tantrums, but they still kept their uh you know, board game nights with kids being kids, and they called it the tantrum house. And um and that became their board game conglomerate. They have a YouTube channel, they have their internet personalities now, they're all of it's it's tantrum house, and they do a once a year a tantrum con, which is a board game convention um that goes on for four days now, Thursday through Sunday. And it's held in Charlotte, North Carolina. And so I've gone to last, this is my fifth year. I always go with the dudes. Um, we had a friend, we'll call him Sam. He uh broke the dude rule a few years ago when he started to bring in his then girlfriend and now wife uh to TantrumCon. Or I guess she was, they were probably married the first year she came. Um, but uh but anyway, um so then that kind of opened up the door for me to be able to bring my wife because I didn't want to be that guy, you know? I let Sam be that guy.

SPEAKER_01: 13:42

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 13:43

So um uh so now you got to come. Yeah. So it was me and you, Sam and Shelly and Luke. Yes. Um, or as we like to call him, Big Fun.

SPEAKER_01: 13:53

Yeah. Or big, what was it, Big Big Big Nasty, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:57

Yeah, Big Nasty. So me, Beth, Sam, Shelly, and Big Nasty. Uh, the five of us um descended upon TantrumCon. Yeah. Held at the La Meridian Hotel and Convention Center or whatever there.

SPEAKER_01: 14:12

Or Sheridan or whatever it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was very confusing, that convention center between the two.

SPEAKER_00: 14:18

In downtown Charlotte. So the convention has around 1,200 people that are that come to it. And so um your thoughts. What are you pointing at Maria about?

SPEAKER_01: 14:29

Hold on. She has the toaster oven on with that thing on top.

SPEAKER_00: 14:32

Oh, you gotta take that thing off.

SPEAKER_01: 14:33

You can't do that, honey. That's a fire hazard.

SPEAKER_00: 14:35

We are uh Maria is burning down the house.

SPEAKER_01: 14:38

Or melting plastic or something. Or melting something.

SPEAKER_00: 14:41

Is it on toast or oven, honey?

unknown: 14:43

It was on oven.

SPEAKER_00: 14:44

Okay, so Maria has just burned down our house.

SPEAKER_01: 14:46

I didn't mean to get distracted and point mic because I was trying to point in a way that, like, you know, you could do it, and then we went and let our house burn down. I did one time have a toaster catch on fire in college. We had to like blow it out. Um, anyway, so I I do try to be careful around toasters. Uh yeah, I think I am. So I try to be careful with toasters and stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 15:07

Yeah, much like Maria.

SPEAKER_01: 15:09

Anyway, but that's like my little toaster oven I got for Christmas, and it's a toaster on top and the toaster oven on the bottom. And so, wait, what? Why should Dad get it for Christmas? I got it. It was my gift to me. Dad gave it to me.

SPEAKER_00: 15:23

I gave her a toaster. He gave her the topic. Or Jacob gave her a toaster. No, you did.

SPEAKER_01: 15:27

Um, Jacob gave me the omelet maker anyway. So you just have to get the stuff off the top so the heat can go out.

SPEAKER_00: 15:33

Nothing says romance, like here's a toaster oven for Christmas.

SPEAKER_01: 15:36

Oh, and this is why Valentine's Day is such a whatever, you know? Because I do like my toaster oven. I know you would. Yeah. So anyway, what we were back to. All right, so we've we've blown the fire out. Yes, okay. Sorry. Yes. Maria did not melt any plastic or burn down the house. Thank goodness. That's why this is unedited. Sorry, people, this is what you get. Keep going.

SPEAKER_00: 16:00

We were talking about see what happens when we don't do it on Fridays when nobody's at home.

SPEAKER_01: 16:04

I know. This is what we get for doing it during my lunch break.

SPEAKER_00: 16:06

On Monday.

SPEAKER_01: 16:07

Yeah, during my lunch break and Maria's breakfast.

SPEAKER_00: 16:10

Anyway, um breakfast at 1222.

SPEAKER_01: 16:14

Yeah. Hence my lunch break. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00: 16:18

Um, so yeah, so we went to TantrumCon.

SPEAKER_01: 16:22

It starts on if you want to do it, it starts on a Thursday and can go to a Sunday. But so it it's a long, it's a long weekend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:30

It's literally just board games, all kinds of board games. They have um they have what they call open play, where you can bring your own board games. They have a board game library with hundreds and hundreds of games in it. You just check it out and go play. They have uh tables for what they call play to wins where you can play them and try to win them at the end of the weekend. Um, they have tons of demos, they have hot games, you know, games that are really popular right now that people can play. And then they have scheduled gaming where you sign up to just play a game. And that's what we did a lot of.

SPEAKER_01: 17:02

We did the whole sign-up thing was like um, I guess like Black Friday shopping used to be or something where you have to like signing up for a Disney marathon. It was, or yes, it was like you gotta have two or three computers there ready to sign up as soon as it opens, you know, or like trying to get tickets to a concert because like it was like we were online signing up for these games a month or two before, like the night that it opened, we both had to be ready. I think it was January 1st.

SPEAKER_00: 17:30

January 1st at seven o'clock. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:32

The games went live. And things were like filling up, like there were games we couldn't do because they were full, even though we were some of the very first people on there. Yeah. So you gotta be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00: 17:43

So what's your thoughts, Beth? Your first four-day board game convention. Most people can't believe that there's conventions that 1,200 people would show up to and play board games for four straight days.

SPEAKER_01: 17:53

And not only that, but like, you know, it's like it's your weekend and you're on vacation, and like we're like, okay, we have an eight o'clock game that we signed up for, which means if you're gonna get breakfast and everything, you know, you're getting up. We got up and could see the sunrise. Like we were getting up early. Now, not everybody does that.

SPEAKER_00: 18:13

We would we went we were back in our rooms most nights by 10 or 10 30.

SPEAKER_01: 18:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:18

There's a lot of people they play until 2 a.m., which is when it it shuts down at night.

SPEAKER_01: 18:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:23

And then they get up at nine o'clock, which makes sense.

SPEAKER_01: 18:26

I can't even comprehend because your brain's on overload. Um, I loved it. So the only for context, uh, outside of like a local thing, we host recon, which is our board game convention, and we have like what, a hundred people a day or something is what we cap it at. Or yeah. And so, and it's in our church. And we do the same model. We have like the play to wins and stuff, but and the people come teach games and players want it, and you can show up. But that's the only thing I really had to compare it to. There are also there's some big everybody kept talking about one of the conventions that's like in Indianapolis and they said Yeah, at a convention center, and it's like how many thousand people?

SPEAKER_00: 19:06

50,000 people.

SPEAKER_01: 19:07

Yeah, I can't even comprehend.

SPEAKER_00: 19:08

It's not even just at it, it's at Lucas Oil Stadium where the Indianapolis Colts play.

SPEAKER_01: 19:14

Yeah, so it's like, and it I don't know how many days it is, but like so. For context for people, when you're thinking through these, there's like, you know, really small to like this size to then these massive ones. So first off, um I loved they had some of the board game designers there. And and our friend Doug um has designed a board game and actually let us play um parts of it and give feedback. But outside of that, I don't have a lot of context for how that works. And so, you know, I'm an inquisitive person. So one of my favorite things was playing these new games with the board game designers. And I've always loved the castles of Man King Ludwig. I I love that um game. And we got to play that with the guy that designed it. And interestingly enough, I thought that he would just destroy us all and and win. And he didn't. He he didn't even win the game, which was kind of just interesting and fun, but it was neat talking to him.

SPEAKER_00: 20:12

You did win the game.

SPEAKER_01: 20:13

Um, you did anyway. But it that was one of our really early morning games. So you like show up and they keep these, you know, you have to keep them small. So it's like five or six people, you know, so you're there. And it was just really neat um talking to him because I was like, uh, how did this game develop? Because it's like, did you just love history and love, you know, this king and castles? And he's like, he he said originally it didn't even have anything to do with that theme. It was like they had this idea of wanting to do have this game based on rooms and putting together rooms.

SPEAKER_00: 20:49

And building your best mansion.

SPEAKER_01: 20:50

Yeah. And then once they started to work on it, the theming started to work better because all your man all your castles end up really crazy because there's stairs and hallways and rooms, and you get different points, and like you can't have like a music activity room beside a sleeping room, but you may want a sleeping room beside like, you know, a room where, you know, a great hall or whatever. And so it was just really neat talking to him and like hearing um how this game came about. And then the other thing I loved is there was another lady there. I'm now following her on Instagram, but she's so he works, I guess, for a company. Like, and there, and that's the other thing. We've learned there are certain companies whose games I tend to like, I guess, and certain designers. But then um, she is an independent board game designer, but not self published. She goes and comes up with games and then pitches those to publishers and they'll pick it up. And so one of her games was based on insects. And so I remember she said that she was like cleaning, asked her how she came up with hers, and she was cleaning out like the attic, and like her grandma had one of those things. I used to look at these all the time with Josh. We'd go to like the science museums and they'll have these boards, and you'll have like a moth or a butterfly pinned to the board. I remember one time I even looked at like, is there a way when we find these insects that we could learn to pin them to the board and preserve them? And this game was kind of based on that with the insects. And so it was just neat hearing like what inspired her, then how she comes up with the ideas, what she pitches to the publisher, what she does, getting the artist. It was just fascinating to me because it's like this is an industry I don't know that much about, you know, kind of, I guess I was comparing it in my head to sort of book publishing. You know, you have self-published, you have whatever, but this independent person kind of concept was cool. And we talked a lot too with her about um women still are not as represented too in like the board game world, you know, board game design and things, which I'm always interested in because um that's one thing like we've even talked to Maria about like when she does things like around Star Wars and stuff, there some things are more male-dominated. So that was really cool. And then there's this game um FinSpan alike, and the guy that did that, we got to play um this wine cellar game with him. That was really um, that was his, right? No, no, no, sorry, not the wine. He did the um the flower one, the flower, the flower. Yes, loved that, super fun. He and another guy had done that one. It was super simple in concept and fast. We did two games with him. So that to me was probably my absolute favorite. It was like actually getting to play the games and be instructive by people.

SPEAKER_00: 23:47

A lot of games with the designers, yes, probably more than I've ever played before.

SPEAKER_01: 23:51

And that that would be if I go back personally, my focus, because I think it's interesting to not only learn the rules and stuff from the person that designed it, but just kind of seeing their personality, seeing them as a person, you know, getting to ask a few questions. That was really cool and fun because I guess I don't know what I thought some of these people would be like, but it's really neat. And plus, it's fun too, like once you start playing a lot of these games, you start to learn different mechanics of different types of games and stuff. So it does become a little easier to learn them. So that was definitely a highlight. Loved that.

SPEAKER_00: 24:28

And you got to play a prototype. Yes, the guy, um Ted, I always mess up his last name, Alcic, Alcic, or something like that. I mean, we'll just call him Ted. Ted that um created the castles of Mad King Lundwood. Yeah. Um he's done some other games, but he has one that he's working on right now that currently is uh they're still prototyping.

SPEAKER_01: 24:50

Yeah, so we can't talk about the mechanics of the game or something. Which was super fun. And they wrote we wrote down our names, so now we're gonna be famous because somewhere we're gonna be in something, I guess, for giving it. Well, put us in the rule book. In the rulebook or like playtesting. Play playtesting and giving feedback on the game. And so that was really cool too. Like playing a game that's kind of not fully done, which is what we got to experience with Doug, because what the kind of feedback you can give, not on this game, but like with Doug, would be you know, I think this one card's kind of overpowered, or if this happens, it or or you have this one goal in the game that's too hard. Or like people might even look at a card on a game and say, I I'm losing track of this rule. You might want to put this icon on the card. So it's really fun being able to like do something people haven't done yet and give the feedback on it. Um and you're play when you're doing these games, it's really interesting too, because there's all sorts of different people there, like all ages. Like there are kids, there's older people, of course, you know, um, single people, married people, um, just you know, quite the Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that because I I didn't mention it, but we played with a couple of older ladies.

SPEAKER_00: 26:07

Yeah. That if you just saw them out in public, you would never think that they were like board game convention types.

SPEAKER_01: 26:13

That was the floristry game that we sat down. There were two ladies and like they were retired age. Yes, and they looked very, I mean, not like but they were very put together and because I think there's also, I mean, not to be stereotypical, but people will joke like the really intense board gamers or like guys that live in their mom's basement or something. Of course, we know that's not true. It's kind of like the video game stereotypes and stuff, but like, I mean, there's still having gone to these, it tends to attract, I feel like, the board gaming. Um like even somebody said it, one of the ladies that taught us our very first game, she said something like about board gaming tending to attract more like of the introverts and stuff. So I'm kind of an outlier in that world as an extrovert when I come in to play the games, like, hey, everybody, I'm here. So it you do have certain, I guess, ideas about who would be attracted to board gaming. And that lady that taught us the first game talked about how they have a women's board game club at their church that meets once a month. And then we had these two ladies. You should start that at our church. I know. And we'll there's enough ladies that like and then the but these two ladies like they were grandmothers because they at least one of them was because her green kids were there. Oh, they did both relative. Yeah, and they looked, they just looked put together and just nothing about them. If I saw them out, I would never be like, oh, these ladies are intense board gamers who would come to this board game convention and do this. And the one lady and her husband, I think it was just them there. The other lady, her, she and her husband as grandparents come and then her kids come and then her grandkids come, and they're all from Charlotte, but they make it like a staycation. Because she said, you know, if we stayed at home, I'd be going home and doing dishes or something. And she's like, so we just do this whole thing. So that was really neat too. Just um, and we because we do recon and we're sort of in this board game world, it was really neat. Every time you go to these, there are people that you don't see at any other time, but now I feel like they're friends. Like there's this couple, the Mooses, and when they went to Florida, um, Marie even watched their kids one time when she was working there, but like they always come to our board. I never see them any other time in life, you know. But like if we go to something board game related, so we've watched them like have kids and do, you know, do these things. So I really like that kind of like community that you have. But I did think back about it too. Like um, there are people not just ages, races, sexes, um, uh ability, like, you know, people, everything. It's a very diverse, much more diverse than you think it would be. And I think what I like about that is it's kind of like we've talked about this before. It's I was in a bubble. Okay. So like I have no idea what's going on politically. This was Super Bowl weekend. I'd forgot. I mean, outside of that our church was gonna have a Super Bowl party, you forget that's even happening. I just like this way that all these people that come together who otherwise would have no reason to interact in the world, come together, but you're not talking about anything divisive. It's kind of like we've talked about with mission trips and stuff too. It's like you have this shared interest, this shared goal, and you all just come together and do things together. And it's just really nice sometimes to be in an atmosphere where it's like, I don't have to talk about politics or I don't have to talk about, you know, everybody that's getting sick or how bad work, you know, can be for some people, or like what the economy's doing, or, you know, like it's just nice to kind of have this escape in this bubble with all these people you don't know, but coming together, you know, again, and just doing this thing that people love. And people are very patient. They have um, even for the games that the uh designers don't design, they have volunteers. And so we played some really fun games, like the guy that taught us to play the gang. It was kind of a poker-based game. And there were some guys in there that, like, here I am, like having to study the card, like, okay, what beats what? A straight, you know, remembering it. And there was one guy you could tell, he was you using lingo, and I was like, what does that mean? Like, I didn't even know what he was saying. But like they would talk you through it, um, you know, give tips. Like, we met a guy who's in the Air Force and flew, flies from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He taught us to play a game.

SPEAKER_00: 30:51

And that was the thing, is I felt like we met more people from outside of North Carolina than inside North Carolina. Yeah, definitely. We played with people from Ohio, yeah, Missouri, New Mexico. I mean, just Florida.

SPEAKER_01: 31:04

Like Florida, Virginia.

SPEAKER_00: 31:05

Yeah, just all over that come in for this convention and make it a big deal.

SPEAKER_01: 31:10

And there was one lady like too, we did this one, they did this little secret meetup thing on a Saturday night. If you because you could do a premiere level, which allowed you to like pay a little more, but sign up for the games in advance. So they had this little, it was just fun. I mean, it could be silly, but it was fun. It was like they sent you an email and they're like, look for this guy, and then you have to compliment his shirt. And then he came and gave us like a card, like a playing card, and like mine was the three of diamonds or something, and then put a little invisible ink thing on your hand, and it was like, show up at this room at like nine at night, you know. So we all went up there, and then they just did one of these games, like um, you had to go in and find everybody else that had uh the same card number. And so I had a three. Well, you connected with your people, but I'm like, there's no threes, I'm the only three. And then this one lady walks in and she's a three, and it happened to be the lady that I'd played the Mag King Ludwig game with. And so we're like, oh my gosh, and we hug each other. I'm like, I've just met this woman. I don't know, but like we played a game, we connected. So it was just really, it was so fun for things like that. And we did some social deduction games that were fun where you know there's like a bad person, you're trying to like uh what was that game called that we did the social deduction with blood on a clock tower, and then really enjoyed but didn't get to finish um the Jack the Ripper game.

SPEAKER_00: 32:35

Letters from Whitechapel.

SPEAKER_01: 32:36

Yeah, really, really liked that. Um, that was so just so many games that were so much fun.

SPEAKER_00: 32:42

Yeah, it's it's and that's what I've tried to explain to people. It's like the board game community is so communal, you know, and like you said, very diverse. Yeah, and nobody talks anything divisive. Yeah, you're there for one common purpose just to play board games and just have a good time. And you know, churches could learn a lot from the board game community.

SPEAKER_01: 33:08

Just like kind of like, you're welcome, let's come here, let's focus on these things.

SPEAKER_00: 33:12

Just focus on Jesus and serving others and leave all your crap at the door. You know, and that's kind of what you had there.

SPEAKER_01: 33:19

Because we don't always have to like fight or whatever, or and it's just it's like nice to be to do things that are fun from time to time, to laugh, to do things that are fun, but also extremely strategic and thinky. Like my brain hurt, you know, like learning all you learn, you're learning all these new games.

SPEAKER_00: 33:39

We played 24 games over the course of four days.

SPEAKER_01: 33:43

Yeah. So it is like it's intense. You're learn and and most of those were brand new games that we had to learn. It's not like things that I came in and I'm like, I know how to play this.

SPEAKER_00: 33:53

Don't know if we even played a game that we had played before. I I mean I played a couple of the games, but you had not. So I don't think there was a game that collectively you and I had both played before.

SPEAKER_01: 34:03

Right. Um Because even the Castles game, it was a very and like it had the towers and stuff. So it was different. Yeah, so it was different. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was just fun too to spend time. It was also nice for us because it was like we had Luke and stuff to do some games with, but then you could go do your own thing. And that's the other thing we talked about that's good about having the signups or like the tables um where you could play the new games and have people teach you. If you went alone and didn't know anyone, you could easily um just insert yourself. Yeah. Like, you know, and and because they have so many scheduled things or so many tables. Like we played one game we didn't even intend to intend to, that Rome game that I loved.

SPEAKER_00: 34:49

Foundations of Rome.

SPEAKER_01: 34:50

Yeah, and that was because they were just like, hey, we need we need people, come play. And so you just go sit down with people and play. Um, and so that's really kind of neat too, because that's a really expensive, like elaborate game, like a few hundred dollars, like five. 350, yeah,$350 that guy has. And so that's not a game that I'm just gonna purchase and be able to play anywhere, you know, it breaks something to you. Oh gosh, here we go.

SPEAKER_00: 35:16

I'm getting it for you for Valentine's Day. It's on its way.

SPEAKER_01: 35:18

Yeah.

unknown: 35:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 35:19

Anyway, but that game was fun. I loved it. But I would just say, like, that's another thing that I like. It is so inclusive and welcoming that like you could just show up and then you just started not only to see people that you see each year at different types of game things, but also again, like that lady that I saw that I'd met on like Friday morning or something, then I saw her again Saturday night, and you just start running into people and seeing them again. So it kind of builds a little community. And then they have people who were trying to teach you about games that they were putting together, kind of like with our friend Doug. And so you could do that.

SPEAKER_00: 35:57

So there's just a lot of different stuff that's like a lot of stuff you could play before that's that's either on Kickstarter now or will be coming to Kickstarter in a month or two, you know, and you could go ahead and play it now and decide if you want to back it or not on a lot of these crowdfunding sites.

SPEAKER_01: 36:12

Yeah, which was really neat. So I mean, I really, really loved it. There were little hiccups like the the hotel convention center we were at, like, and they know this. Um, and this isn't Tantrum Con's fault, it was more the hotel. Like there was a big room, it had like we called it like ballroom lighting. It was dim. And so my eyes are going, but they did bring in some lamps and stuff, and that helped. And then there were some things at the hotel with the parking deck, so like parking was an issue. So we Ubered like to go to dinner and stuff like that. And we didn't stay in the hotel where this was happening. We stayed at a hotel about a block away. A block away, which it was really cold, but that actually wasn't bad because otherwise I would be just sitting all day. So it it caused us at least to get up in the morning and walk, you know, even though it was cold, but walk down or walk back at night and do stuff. So that was nice. Um, so you know, there were little things that uh anything's gonna have that you might be like, oh, well, I wish this, you know, hadn't been the case. Um, but it it was great. I mean, it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00: 37:17

So would you do it again?

SPEAKER_01: 37:18

Yeah, I would. And the only thing we talked about when you'd asked me about it, and this is totally an us thing, initially I felt very scheduled. And I was trying to explain to you and Luke, I'm my my day, like I guess like last week there were days like that I had a nine o'clock meeting, a 9.30 meeting, a 10 o'clock meeting, a 10:30 meeting. My days are so scheduled. The only thing I said that I would want to do, which is hard though, because you want to play these games with the designers. I would probably be more strategic about building in just a little more downtime for you and me, because there were times when it was like we don't really have time to go out and eat or anything, but I feel like my brain needed a break just to rest and to go eat or to move.

SPEAKER_00: 38:06

Where games ended at let's say we played a game from nine to eleven.

SPEAKER_01: 38:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 38:11

At 11.01, we were sitting down because we were scheduled at a game at 11.

SPEAKER_01: 38:15

Right. Right. Or and we had one game. We had to go tell them, will you wait for us to get it? Yeah, just give us five minutes. Give us five minutes to finish this. And so that's the only thing. Um, now that I've been, I think I can be more thoughtful about just giving myself a little downtime because what I was seeing is we did have time to walk around and play some of the demo games, but you do meet cool people. You don't know that they're gonna have downtime when you do, but I could have used even a little more time just to go chit-chat with people and talk like that. Because you can talk some during the games, but you're also having to concentrate. The other thing we learned about me, and you're right, I'm really a perfectionist and hard on myself. And so um I was trying so hard, even if not to win, not to be very last place in every game. And so I think that added an additional layer of stress.

SPEAKER_00: 39:07

Like I told you You want to understand every rule so you make no mistakes.

SPEAKER_01: 39:11

So I make the best strategic decisions that you can make. And so it would be very frustrating because if you've never played this game and somebody told you a rule that maybe you missed, or somebody missed, or they told you a rule later. Like there was one game, this wasn't that somebody really missed it, but I had done one move and somebody came and was like, Oh, you can't, it was this game fountains, you can't connect two round pieces. And I was like, Well, this just blows up everything. I've got to go fix this. This changes my whole strategy in my head. I'm doing this because I wanna like, you know, I want to understand it. I want to do it right, you know, and so And did we kick you out of the game? No, no one kicked me out of the game. Everybody's like, oh, you can just fix it on your next move. But I get frustrated with myself when I make a what I consider a bad move or when I can't grasp because some of the games sometimes too, some just come very intuitive. Like, you know, you when you play a lot of these games, you learn. Like there's some games where you're placing tiles, and so you learn the mechanics or work, they call them worker placement games, or you have these workers, you put them so you learn certain mechanics of games. So there's some that if your your brain just kind of works that way, you can pick them up and it's easy. There's other games, your brain just isn't going to work that way, and you struggle, yeah, you know, and so like we always joke about bidding games. Anything where you have to bid on it stresses me out because I overthink it. I have a shirt that says analysis paralysis that I wore. Um, so that was the only thing, but that's a me thing, you know. But again, I think that's another cool thing about board games. You realize things like this about yourself and you can work on it, you know, like I'm just gonna do this game for fun or I'm not gonna get in my head. But there was one game we played called Up or Down. And I we ended up playing it much later. It was one of the nights we didn't finish till like 11, and we played it with the Mooses and with the Luke. And I was so stressed that I was like sweating from the stress of like this is a game. That's like, and if people know the game, it's like a simple card game. Like, but I was so stressed about it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:18

And I think Bradley, but he was like, I'm a nervous wreck right now.

SPEAKER_01: 41:21

Yes, but it's just a card game. I know, and I'm not life or death. I did end up winning that one, but like I was so stressed out about it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:29

And the sweat was worth it.

SPEAKER_01: 41:30

Yeah, it was, definitely. Yeah. So, you know, and we got to go um eat at the pink what was the original pancake house. Original pancake house for breakfast, and we got to go, what was that place with all the restaurants in Charlotte? That was so neat that made it.

SPEAKER_00: 41:44

Um I don't know. It's called the Market. They call it the Market, but it has some kind of these hardwood floors you walk in. It's like an old tobacco warehouse or something that they've converted into like 50 restaurants.

SPEAKER_01: 41:56

But there was a place that has Indian street food. Oh my gosh. Got the butter chicken, the naan. It was so good. Yeah. I mean, so there's things like that too, that if you keep going back to the same place that I would probably be looking forward to, like, okay, we've got to carve out enough time to go eat at this one place, you know, so because I loved it. So there was lots of cool stuff like that. And it was fun to hang out with Sam and Shelley and also then with Luke, too, just to have Luke to us. He's no longer Luke. And then he was big fun for a little while until he became big nasty. Um, yeah, but it was fun just to do that too, because he said some things that I was laughing until I cried at breakfast Sunday. And he said people were gonna look at me and think that I was crying that somebody had been delivered bad news to me, but I was just laughing.

SPEAKER_00: 42:47

So it was big fun. It was big fun in those moments.

SPEAKER_01: 42:51

Yes, yes. But that was neat too, just being able to go kind of I don't know, because most of the time I feel like sometimes people take vacations with friends or something, but I don't know. How often are you like going with your friends and just doing something like that, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 43:07

Yeah. So it was really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Um now you mentioned the fun people to play with.

SPEAKER_01: 43:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:14

We also have some knuckleheads.

SPEAKER_01: 43:15

Yeah, we did have one or two.

SPEAKER_00: 43:16

There were two of my least favorite kind of people to play with, we played games with. And those first person is the know-it-all.

SPEAKER_01: 43:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 43:24

And I hate playing with that type of person. And I think that's a good one.

SPEAKER_01: 43:27

But particularly if it's a cooperative game.

SPEAKER_00: 43:30

Yeah. Yeah. And the way the cooperative game works is yeah, you're all working together to basically beat the game.

SPEAKER_02: 43:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:44

But everyone still plays kind of individually. You can talk about what you think each person should do. But this guy was just loud and just like, you should do this. I can't believe you didn't do that.

SPEAKER_01: 43:56

And it was still, and like, and also, too, the the other thing with the cooperative games is. It's kind of like, you know, you may take input from other people before you decide, or you may make a, you know, and so but when you have somebody but when you have one person that just comes in and says, This is how you win the game, or I know everything, the funds just kind of sucked out.

SPEAKER_00: 44:14

And I just ignore that guy. You know, I didn't take anything he said.

SPEAKER_01: 44:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:18

I mean, it was like, I'm gonna do what I want to do. I don't care what you're doing. I'm not worried about it. Yeah. In fact, what you suggest, I might just do the opposite, even though it's like just to get into your skin.

SPEAKER_01: 44:25

Yeah. I mean, it's like, what in the world?

SPEAKER_00: 44:28

And then the other one uh that I've grown now over the last couple of years to despise playing with, and that is the person that just can't sit and be in the moment of the game. Uh-huh. And we played another game, and I don't know if you even saw this or not. Um, we played a game, and it was with uh somebody we didn't know was in the group of people playing with us. And it was a game that had just a little bit of downtime. Like you would make your move and you really couldn't do nothing else. You couldn't even think about your next move because it's one of these deals where the board would change so much before it got back to you. And as soon as this person would play, she would pull out her phone and I would look, and she was sitting beside me and I'd look, and she was just literally surfing Instagram and TikTok. Yeah. Just watching. And I'm like, you can't put your phone away for like a minute. Like, just sit here and be a part of the game. Why do you have to pull it?

SPEAKER_01: 45:22

Or look and see what somebody else is doing and wonder why, even if it's a dumb move, like, why did they do that? Or look around the room.

SPEAKER_00: 45:30

And I'm like, you probably finished last because you spent more time on TikTok in this game than you were actually paying attention to what was going on.

SPEAKER_01: 45:37

I played a game with somebody who was playing another game on their phone while they were playing. Really? Yeah. It was like, and so you're just watching, but because to your point, I think, because that's one of the things I've been thoughtful about. I know we we joke about this, but like I get irritated now if I'm like eating or doing something with somebody and they are on the phone. Now, granted, and I'll tell people sometimes I'll be like, listen, I'm putting my phone here, I'm waiting for a text from my kids or whatever, you know. And so it's like, but then I'm not constantly like on my phone. I might just glance at it. But then I'm like, if I've taken the time to be here, to your point, some of these games were like 20 minutes, you know, or 15 minutes each. But like some of them are really short. And it's like, like also, even if you take the time and you're a little bored, like when I was watching the people, like with you and me, because we weren't on our phone. Like there was one time somebody came through and you were like, oh, they're looking for players for Dune. That game may take five hours, or you know, or and then I started asking about it, and they're like, Oh, yeah, those two guys over there have been playing for like four hours. You know, so you just you learn things about what's happening, just being in the moment a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 46:45

Those are my two least favorite kinds of people to play with is the um The know-it-alls. The know-it-alls, and then the people who are I'm like, why are you even here taking up a space? Yeah, if you're making it. The game could have gone a lot quicker if you weren't here at the same time.

SPEAKER_01: 46:58

If you weren't gonna be engaged in it.

SPEAKER_00: 47:01

If you're gonna commit, just commit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 47:05

Which is the other thing, though, I did not mention about the games. That's another cool thing, though. If you have a shorter attention span, there are games that you can knock out, like learn to play and play three times in the hour that we had designated for it. And there are other games that people could literally be there for hours upon hours. And we've had it recon people come and they literally play one game all day.

SPEAKER_00: 47:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 47:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 47:30

Yeah. So you got to see, I guess, maybe for your first time, um uh a game that is set up where it's so massive and the pieces are so big, and people use tape measures to figure out how far away things can be and what the moves will be. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01: 47:50

I can't even comprehend how that game works. Still, I did not play one of those, but they y'all were explaining it to me as almost like being like a video game like Red Dead Redemption or Fallout, in that it's a an open game concept, so you can kind of explore the game board where normally, you know, it's like you can move here and you can move here, and you can you have three moves you can make or something, but this you can explore everywhere. But to your point, everything's to scale.

SPEAKER_00: 48:22

You can only move so far, and so you've got to literally measure it with a tape measure on this giant board to see how far your person can move, or if you're gonna attack somebody, how far away are they exactly? There's no eyeball in it.

SPEAKER_01: 48:33

It's and I didn't look up close, but from where I was sitting, I turned around and they had like literal fake trees and everything on this board. It was very elaborate. And I think there was one of the games that's the other thing we talked about. Luke likes, as he would call it, the Euro games, which are highly strategic, not a lot of um like luck or chance, but also sometimes not as we said blend, they're not as pretty. I don't necessarily have to play pretty games, but we played a lot of really pretty games. And like there was the one game that the lady did with the insects, and she's from the Midwest, from Indiana, so all the insects were real insects in Indiana. It was very pretty. Um, she also had done a stables game that had all real horses that people like had submitted, um, or the florist, the floristry game. They had the tiles with like the little colorful flowers on them. So we just played some really pretty, visually appealing games that like, and that's the way like wingspan and thin span, those games are, because they have birds and fish with real birds and real fish. You learn things as you do it. So the nerd in me likes games like that too. So there's like really short versus really long. There's all these different types of games that you can play, like that worker placement or the like, or there there's also the games, the dexterity games, like uh the flicking and stuff, which I'm terrible at those games.

SPEAKER_00: 49:59

There's the central social deduction rooms.

SPEAKER_01: 50:02

Social deduction rooms that you can have if where you're just trying to do those games. So just a lot of variety of stuff, too, for the different types of interest that people may have.

SPEAKER_00: 50:13

So let me ask you this. We'll we'll start wrapping it up. Um what is your favorite and least favorite game mechanic? Meaning, like this is a type of game it is. Like um, for example, like social deduction is a game mechanic.

SPEAKER_02: 50:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:29

Worker placement is a game mechanic. Um, push your luck is a game mechanic, auction is a game mechanic, bidding is a game mechanic, um, roll and write is a game mechanic. Yeah. Dice, you know, like you'd say there's there's all these different mechanics that are in games. What do you think your favorite and least favorite are?

SPEAKER_01: 50:47

My least favorite is bidding because I always feel like I'm bidding things, then I second guess myself, like, why did I bid that much? Why did I do that? I just that and like also push your luck, and she I'm getting better with push your luck. It's almost like exposure therapy or something. Like I used to not be able to do those at all, but to a certain extent, flip sevens, a push your luck. Yeah. And so I've gotten much better at that. When I think that's been another one when I talk about being a perfectionist, I started off always like, why did I draw that card? But then you play flip seven a few times. Like the other night we played, and I I went out on fives or sevens. Anybody that's played this game knows that. Like, and literally it's like the second card I draw. You know, when you start to realize, like, all right, this is not a a reflection on my intelligence or game skill. You know, sometimes you just draw the wrong card. So that's helped me get better, I think, with push your luck games, just realizing like, you know, I'm so risk averse and now I'm a little more risk-taking. And that's been, but the um, the bidding games, oh, they stress me out. Um, I think worker placement, like the Fromager, whatever we I really like a lot of those because I like this concept of having a lot of different mechanisms to win and a lot of different things. Like every turn, you're kind of like, oh, I could go over here and do this or I can do that. So I like a lot of those. And then I just love games like we've talked about like Azul. I don't know what you call those, but I love like Tile placement. Yeah, I love like tile placement. Um, but I particularly love games that like they're different every time you play. I like games that like the board changes, the pieces change where you can't just always use the same strategy because we were talking about playing Ticket to Ride with our friend, we'll call him Ross, who always uses the same strategy. And his strategy, I think, forces you to end the game early, which I do not like. So, Ross, if you're listening, you know I don't like this. Um, but that take Ticket to Ride, I feel like, is a game that you very much tend towards one strategy or the other. And there's not a lot that's gonna force you to change. I like the games we talked about it that have a set number of turns, like verdant, but also so that people can't accelerate the end of the game. But I also like games that depending on what you get as your first starter piece, it's gonna change your strategy. I I love games that do that.

SPEAKER_00: 53:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 53:28

What about you?

SPEAKER_00: 53:29

Um gosh. My favorite? I love a good social deduction game. I like those too. I love social deduction games. And you know, like uh we played obviously Letters from Whitechapel, which was uh a doctor type.

SPEAKER_01: 53:48

This probably started from your days in youth ministry when we played Mafia. I really think it did. Like playing Mafia, make it up the story to go with it.

SPEAKER_00: 53:56

Uh uh Scotland Yard, Sherlock Holmes edition. Um even the super secret game we played uh with Ted, you know, the actor that he was prototyping was the social deduction game. And um there was one character in the game. Um you had two different groups of people, and then you had this one lone character. And uh you got these roles at random. And when I drew that card one time, I took that as a challenge. I was like, all right, like I'm gonna get to do this. And there was a couple years ago uh there was uh this um this board game convention holds a lot of North Carolina State championship tournaments for board games. And um and I was there was a game called Sabah Saboteur, which is a social deduction game. And I entered it and won. And so that year I was the North Carolina State champion of saboteur.

SPEAKER_01: 54:46

I would like to insert though that these social deduction games, a lot of your skill is around your ability to lie convincingly. So I just find it um humorous that uh you are the state champion at a game that's fundamentally based on your ability to lie and convince others that you're not lying.

SPEAKER_00: 55:05

Well, part of it's that, but well, it's also just reading people. You're reading people. And I think that's the advantage I have from being in ministry for 30 years.

SPEAKER_02: 55:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 55:14

You don't deal with thousands and thousands of people over the course of those 30 years, all types of people from each end of the spectrum, the worst of the worst to the best of the best, and not learn people. You deal with the same thing. Yeah, I like these games too.

SPEAKER_01: 55:31

Your job is about trying to read keys or seeing what they did, like you acted way different like early on from the way you're acting now. Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_00: 55:42

So um I just love those social deduction games. And you know, we have some here at the house.

SPEAKER_01: 55:47

Um uh Deception, Murder in Hong Kong, Secret Hitler, One Night Ultimate Werewolf.

SPEAKER_00: 55:58

I mean, there's so much. We have so many. Yeah, I just I love those games. So that might be my favorite type of game. Um my least favorite type. Um I think the games that are just a hundred percent luck. Yeah. You know, like I don't mind a push-your-luck game.

SPEAKER_01: 56:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:16

Because there is some luck, but you have some control.

SPEAKER_01: 56:19

Yeah, because like in Flip 7, even, you know, like, okay, there's this many 12s in the deck. Here's the probability this is gonna you still have to think some about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:29

Yeah, you're there's a chance involved.

SPEAKER_01: 56:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:32

But it's a calculated risk.

SPEAKER_01: 56:33

Risk. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 56:34

Um, where some games are just so randomly luck. Yeah. I hate those games. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 56:40

And um, because then it doesn't feel like it takes any skill at all.

SPEAKER_00: 56:44

No, no.

SPEAKER_01: 56:45

And I don't need it to be so strategic, there's like a Euro game or something, which I do like some of those, but like Luke's talking about where it's like everything is strategy. You know, I don't necessarily know.

SPEAKER_00: 56:54

And the problem with those are you get somebody who's played that game several times. Yeah. You're not gonna have a good time because they're gonna know exactly what they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01: 57:05

They know exactly yeah, they know the mechanics and the strategies and everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 57:08

And so, I mean, you're gonna have to go into that knowing, I'm probably gonna finish last. Yeah. I'm just here to learn how to play the game. Right. You know, and that's you know, you wanna be even if you don't win, you want to be competitive.

SPEAKER_01: 57:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 57:21

Yeah. Um, so uh what about genre of games? You know, there's um there's horror, there's space, there's animals, there's you know what I'm saying? There's there's they have genres for everything. Every genre you like Doug, his genre, he did a game on making. Yeah you know, so what do you think is your favorite and least favorite genre?

SPEAKER_01: 57:44

I think the ones that I've loved tend to be the animal focused. It's like, you know, like the insect one, the flowers, the stables. But even before that, like like I said, I like wingspan, I like fin span. I love things that are based on parks, um, the national parks game. Like I just love Verdant, which is a flower game. I mean, I I'm really drawn to games that like are nature inspired. And I think part of that too is also they tend to have really pretty artwork and things that's visually appealing. So you end up with a pretty board as well and stuff, but I really like the nature type games. Okay. But the second, which is interesting, I really enjoyed kind of those Sherlock Holmes slash mer, you know, those were Jack the Ripper, those were fun. I kind of like that whole either that or castles and which goes along with the types of things I like to read. So it probably isn't surprising I like the nature thing because we've talked about I have a million plants, I love animals, I love hiking and outdoors. And then the second thing, I do love castles and dragons and all that stuff. So that's probably like my second kind of theme that's appealing.

SPEAKER_00: 58:53

Do you have a least favorite genre where it's just like this is regardless if you don't know anything else about the game except the theme, you're like, yeah, I don't think I want to play that.

SPEAKER_01: 59:03

Um probably most of the time I'm not gonna like anything that's purely like war-based. And also, I'm not a I mean, I love science fiction and stuff, but space, I'm just tend to not be a huge. I I don't know that I've played a game based in space. We do have that one Martian game. Um, not Martian, it's like the little or moon, is it the little you take the little rover and you go and you pick up pieces of the game. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like it, but that's not like if I see those out in the place, I'm not gonna be like, oh my gosh, I need to buy this because it's space. Where when I see a plant game or an animal or an outdoor game, I'm like, mm, I may want to do that, or a castle kind of base game. I may want to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 59:45

Yeah, yeah. It's funny. I'll start with my least favorite. It's funny because it is piggyback. I I hate space games. Yeah. And I'm gonna go ahead and apologize to our friend Roy Twitter.

SPEAKER_01: 59:53

Roy, I know, we're sorry, Roy.

SPEAKER_00: 59:54

Roy has a game called Last Light that is that uh a year or two ago was the hottest game in the country. I mean, he it was it did very, very well, and he's a board game designer, and it did it did very well, but it was a space game. And I was on the I mean, literally, I sat in Roy's house and played that game when he had the figures were made out of play-doh and things like that. So to be able to see that game mass-produced and how well it did was pretty cool. But it's not a game I would ever buy. It's not a game I would ever pick up. And yeah, there is that one space game we own, which I was kind of shocked by that actually liked it. Um uh, but again, I would it's a tile placement game. Yeah, I love tile placement games.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:39

I like that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:39

You know, like a Baron Park or Copenhagen, which I love both of those. Yes. Nova Luna. Yeah. So I enjoy tile placement and it has a space theme. Yeah. I can get it could have been themed on anything though. Yeah. You know, but um so I would say space is my least favorite. And I think my my most favorite, and this might be what you're trying to articulate. I like my games based in reality.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:02

You know, like let it be about fish that are real fish, let it be about plants, let it be about uh buildings or even historical events like Jack DeRipper. Like I like that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:14

And castles that really existed, like Megan Lindwick. That was a real person that had crazy castles. And like I knew about that game before I knew much about him, and then that made me interested in him, you know? Or like, yeah, I'm like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:28

Games that are based in fantasy, I'm not a fan of, but just in concept. But okay, Louise played Spellbook the other night, which was a fun game. I really, really enjoyed it. But it's not a game I would have picked up if Luke hadn't made us play it. Yeah. Because the whole thing is about potions and spells and you know, like, that was a cool game.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:48

We were just sitting there, forgot this. Like we were just sitting there playing that, this random game, which we ended up liking. It reminded me of like kind of like Splendor or, you know, you're kind of building up.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:59

It's the same company that produced Splendor.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:00

Which makes sense, yeah. So it were it was in that same vein of like that. But we were just sitting there playing, and this guy comes and he's just standing and watching us, which isn't unusual because I've done that too. Like you just see a game and you're like, oh, I've never seen that, or you'll it'll be a cool game board and you want to look at it and you ask questions. And so he watches this and then he was like, Do you have any questions? I'm the producer, wasn't he the producer of the publisher of the game? And we're like, oh, okay, you know, and so and then he got our picture to send back to the designer of the game.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:35

And the designer is a very famous designer.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:38

Yeah, so it that that kind of stuff was just again, it's just fun to be sitting there, and then you're here comes this random person who's just at this convention like a normal guy, you know, and he comes up and he's like, Oh yeah, that I I did this. And we're like, oh, okay, we didn't. Then I got all nervous, like, uh, is he judging what I've done? Because it's my first time. I don't know what I'm doing. But you're right. But going back to what you were saying, sorry, that I mean, we I I like some of those too. And even though I read a ton of fantasy books, and this is gonna sound silly too, but I've told you too, some of my fantasy has to be almost based in reality, or you have to have rules and systems. Like, I don't like fantasy that's like, I've just made up a world and there's not like, okay, like if you have magic, magic has to come at a cost. Like, you know, you can't just have all powerful people who do whatever. And I feel like that in games and stuff too. Like there needs to be a certain like basis in some sort of like reality, like truth and consequences or what have you to them. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, but I think you are right because I think, and I like games that I think it's almost like if you like historical fiction, it's like historical fiction, you learn when you're reading, you're learning about the past, but you have a good story to pull you along. And I think that's what I like about some of these games. It's like you can learn and pick up little things about it with, you know, but um it's you've got that game that's kind of pulling you along, that fun game concept. Yeah. Yeah. So it was it was great, though. I will I will do it again for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:17

Um, and I don't I need to go look. I don't know if they mis put the date. Um, because next year they have it starting on Wednesday. Oh, wow. Wednesday through Sunday.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:27

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:28

No, it is their 10-year anniversary. Oh, so they may be going to be able to do that. Maybe doing something that starts on a Wednesday. I I don't know. But um, yes, like and they've moved it to the end of February.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:39

So uh maybe a little bit better weather, they're hoping for. But um but it's February like uh 24th through 28th, something like that above 2027. Um they didn't have the location, which m makes me wonder.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:53

Are they gonna be able to do that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:54

Are they gonna look at maybe moving it again? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:56

Um but um the one thing that would have made it better for me, but this is just me now traveling and doing things. If I'm in a city or downtown, I love being able to walk. And the part where we were and in Charlotte, you could walk, but you had to walk a distance to a restaurant, which is not a problem if it's not 10 degrees with ice on the sidewalks, you know? And they can't control the weather, you know, or anything like that. But like that's my only thing, you know, that I would have loved a little more would have been more walkable stuff right there. Because again, I think for me, I can be inside and do all that, but like sometimes I'm just like, okay, I need to get out of the building for a few minutes. It's got, you know, just like get some fresh air and then come back and and do that. So yeah, I think there are probably people who stay in that hotel that never because there are people who are eating at the hotel, who were staying in the hotel. They literally just went downstairs to the to the board game thing. And so yeah, so there are people you know that like never leave the building. In for like four or five days or whatever.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:01

Well, they don't usually leave their mom's basement in.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:03

See, that's no good. There you go. Being, yeah. But um, yeah, it was great. It was fun. I loved the variety of things. Um, you know, when we got some free games when we checked in, some little goodies and stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:18

You came home with like six or seven games that they gave us. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:22

So that'll be cool for us to try some new stuff and just meeting the new people. I look forward to like going back and kind of seeing people I know. You know, that's been the other cool thing, just running into people and being like, oh, I know you. I only see you at board game things, but I know you and it's fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:38

Well, I'm glad you went. That was I was really looking forward to having you joining me this year for the first time. So I'm glad you got to go.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:44

I'm glad you took me. I did miss Doug. I gotta put that in there. Usually Doug's playing games.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:49

No, I didn't even notice.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:51

Oh. But usually Doug plays a lot of games. And Doug is so patient and kind and stuff. And so Saint Doug, as we call him.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:01

Saint Doug and Big Nasty.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:02

Yeah. And then I have Luke who's teaching me, and it's just kind of like, why are you making that move? Why would you do that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:11

Feeding into my big condescending.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:15

Big judge.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:16

Feeding into my um already perfectionism. It's like Luke's watching. Does he think that's a dumb move? So you have that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:25

I'm used to that.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:26

Yeah. And it was again, too, it was fun because it's also it was also cool to play with Sam and Shelly, but I was thinking back, Sam was probably the original person that I started playing a lot of, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:39

He was. Him and Steven would have these little Panera night board games once a month or something. And we would go start playing with him.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:45

They were like our introduction. I mean, no, a long, long time ago, Brent and Caleb, our friends, introduced us to um uh Catan, which is kind of like the gateway game, you know, that the intro game to this new type of gaming that's not like Monopoly in life or whatever. They we played that a lot with them, but as far as like seriously expanding beyond that to other types of games, Sam and then um my friend Gemma had invited us to a board game thing at her house. But I'm I think we were already playing with Sam when Gemma introduced us to some of those games, and we went and learned a lot of those. So that and every time I see Sheriff of Nottingham, all I think about is Steven because he was always like the bad guy that lied, but he seemed so sweet and innocent. So yeah, I wonder if that's changed. I'll just play a game with Steven and see if he can still deceive me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:36

He's married now, so he probably is he's had that beaten out of him.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:41

But anyway, so that was neat too to have like the person that kind of like you first started playing with, you know, and it's like ah, it's all go way back. All these years, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:50

Yeah, it's a good time. Yeah, yeah. And so it was a lot of fun games. So what I'll do is we'll post this. And um I I probably on the the podcast description and you know, on the social media, I'll put all the games we play. Yeah, and I'll put little stars beside the ones that we really love.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:09

And um and get that out there.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:11

Sounds great.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:12

Yeah. And so anyway, well, I'm glad you got to go, and I'm glad you're back for our podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:17

Well, and I know everyone's gonna be just waiting with bated breath for like the Valentine's episode. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:22

So you've got a couple days to prepare yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:24

I wonder if I'll get a bunch of Valentine's Day cards or candies or anything, you know, because of my disdain for Valentine's Day, but we'll see.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:32

I know I won't. Not from you anyway.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:35

All right, people. Please throw Mike a bone. Send him something for Valentine's.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:39

Or send Beth some tips.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:41

Yes, send me ideas. Be like, Beth, you really should give this to Mike. Okay. So, yeah, let me know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:49

All right. Well, this is Mike. And Beth. And this has been Hey, are you still there? Look forward to talking to you again very soon.