Married and Board
Married and Board
Rock Hard: 1977
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Join us as we journey beyond our 100th episode. We're knee-deep in the re-sleeving adventure of our Marvel Champions card collection, wrestling with the decision between Titan Shield and other brands. Our tales of color-coding fiascoes and the satisfying zen of organizing cards might just convince you to give your own collection a makeover.
Imagine stepping into the shoes of a 1970s rock star. We bring you the groovy vibes with a breakdown of "Rock Hard 1977," a board game created by Jackie Fox of The Runaways. We share our thoughts on the thematic elements, the nostalgia it evokes, and the spatial acrobatics required to play it, not to mention some light-hearted musings on the temptations of the rock lifestyle.
The episode hits a high note with a discussion on balancing fantasies with historical realities in board games, followed by a nostalgic quiz about 1970s rock classics.
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Hi, I'm Christian.
Speaker 2:And I'm Angela and we are Married and Bored.
Speaker 1:Well, welcome everybody to another episode of the Married and Bored podcast. Yes, we're back.
Speaker 2:Married and Bored 101.
Speaker 1:101. It're back Married and Bored 101. 101. It's a great number. We're going to start at the very beginning. We're going to teach you how to do all Married and Bored stuff.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:From zero to intermediate, because then you take Married and Bored 102.
Speaker 2:Yes, I was thinking Dalmatians, and you'll learn a little bit more. No, I don't think about Dalmatians. 101 Dalmatians. I know 101 is just as good as 100.
Speaker 1:It's one more better than 100.
Speaker 2:It's just as good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Thanks everybody for tuning in to our 100th episode. That one kind of snuck up on us, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Why did it sneak up on us? We shouldn't be surprised. I mean, it was a slow burn.
Speaker 1:It's not like we flew to 100.
Speaker 2:That's true. Took us a while, but we did it we did it, and we've got a thought in our head for something to kind of I don't know add to the podcast.
Speaker 1:A third guest.
Speaker 2:Oh, who is the third guest?
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought that was the idea.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I'm not sharing what the idea is.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're not.
Speaker 2:Because I want it to be mysterious. It's like one of those Facebook posts where it's like I have really good news, but I can't share it yet.
Speaker 1:Or it's like I can't believe what just happened. Period.
Speaker 2:It's like fishing for the comments, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, no, not again. It's like oh geez, jennifer, what happened? Let me tell you yeah, brink yeah, and then you get a whole 32 notification.
Speaker 1:All right, so we're trying, we're trying to take it to the next level. Right, you get to level 100 in warcraft or diablo and it's like, what are you going to do? You're just going to keep going and get better, yeah, so we're going to try to do that, but we're not here to talk about video games. We're not even here to talk about us, but we're going to talk about us and what has been up with us and you've been, you've been busy the past few days. Um, it kind of seems like you have a big project going on.
Speaker 2:I have been really into organizing our Marvel Champions stuff.
Speaker 1:Isn't it already organized? Yes, we did a whole Marvel Champions Summer tune-in to our previous shows to learn more about it.
Speaker 2:But so we're in the process of re-sleeving all of our cards for Marvel Champions. Re-sleeving all of our cards for Marvel Champions, and when I say we're in the process, it's because we just don't want to go out and buy a thousand sleeves.
Speaker 1:At once At once no, so we're buying them in moderate chunks and then re-sleeving as we go. Yeah, it's easier to just buy sleeves when new content comes out, the ones we buy, I mean we'll say what they are. They're Titan Shield and we just find them on Amazon and we like the clear, matte finish. I know that's some people don't like that, especially for tournament stuff. I don't think you're allowed to have clear sleeves because then you can mark your cards and see them.
Speaker 2:Marvel Champions it allowed to have clear sleeves, because then you can mark your cards and see them marvel champions.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter, but like for a game like star wars unlimited or something I think you have to have a solid back.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, so we did that for a while? Yeah, we did, because we didn't hero all the hero decks with the white back and all the villain or encounters whatever with the orange? Yes, and then I don't know what stopped it for you, but for me it was the orange. Reorder was in a different color yeah, so they was this.
Speaker 1:It was the same company. We were getting orange and then they, they like, changed the tint of orange a little bit. Or maybe we, we couldn't find the old orange and we were like, oh, oh, we'll try this new brand and it didn't.
Speaker 2:I think it was both, because as I'm re-sleeving, there's three different shades of orange. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we're just like you know what. Let's just go clear, going clear, just like the Scientology documentary.
Speaker 2:Oh, are you plugging the Scientology documentary?
Speaker 1:That's the way we go. So where are you in all this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think I have maybe like half of the heroes to go.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That need sleeves Actually probably more than half, because we had some janky, clear sleeves that we don't like, but I just used them to replace the orange and white. So I would like to eventually replace those two, those really really thin, clear ones that we had. So I probably have like two-thirds of the heroes left to sleeve, and then a lot of the villain stuff needs to get out of orange, especially the older villain like the early stuff, the rise of red skull campaign is all orange um, I think, even like all the way through spider-man oh, you know what?
Speaker 1:I think I've said this on our in our series this summer, but, like, like, I forget about the Spider-Man box. Yeah, I never think of it.
Speaker 2:No, because you never played the full campaign.
Speaker 1:Me yeah, personally.
Speaker 2:I don't think you did. I did Probably not yeah, so I've been doing that. I like the roteness of it.
Speaker 1:What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Like just the process of sleeving rote-ness of it. What does that mean? Like just the process of sleeving? Okay, I like that and it sounds so pathetic like I'm making fun of someone, but I'm saying it earnestly Like I like the pile of the cards that I'm gonna sleeve, then the new sleeves, then the old sleeves go in this pile. I like, like that rote.
Speaker 1:You just like order.
Speaker 2:Order, just like I like. You know like filling swag bags, you know like how there's something from each section goes in the bag and then the bag is complete and I just like that assembly line stuff, okay. Plus, I can do it while I watch Breaking Bad.
Speaker 1:And is that? No spoilers? But is that what's bringing you joy at the end of the episode? Because I would say it's not bringing you joy.
Speaker 2:No, we talked that we were watching it last episode and it's a good show, but it is frustrating sometimes for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you never watched it when it was out, so this is all new for you.
Speaker 2:It's all new, okay, so that's what's been up with me, what is up with you.
Speaker 1:I've been watching a lot of Marvel Champions sleeving. Just online yeah it's a new thing, it's just going nuts.
Speaker 2:Wait, should I twitch my sleeving? Wow, you know what that is.
Speaker 1:I do Look at you, yeah, so I've been looking at the marvel champions with you just a little bit, because I haven't really been in the world. We just got nightcrawler right, that's the newest one, so that's fun. He's bamfing all around, so I mean, I'm interested in trying that out and obviously magnus is coming in a couple months or weeks at this point, but yeah, so anyways. Um, in beyond that, what has been up with me?
Speaker 1:I did an impulse buy angela, I don't know oh, I know, I was waiting for you to fess up to it I don't know if you've ever uh known me to do this before, um, but just thinking back in our history, yeah, some of our best games, or some of your favorite games, came from impulse buys, so, um enlighten me mar no, not marvel champions um mansions of madness okay impulse buy okay, and you were like I don't get it. You played it, loved it right that's true.
Speaker 1:I can't think of another one, though me neither, oh, so it's just one out of many out of so many, I mean uh, yeah, I can't.
Speaker 2:I can't think of another one, because cosmoctopus was this kickstarter, wasn't?
Speaker 1:it. No, I well it was, but then I impulsed it afterwards okay.
Speaker 2:So I I mean and then it was okay and we sold it yeah, um, I can't think of any other like impulse buys of yours that I've been like yes yeah, I know there's just been a few that if it's like a two-player card game or something it's like, well, we usually only play with two.
Speaker 1:Is this 25 or less?
Speaker 2:yes, it is buy it it's like your, it's your brain's flow chart. Is it $25 or less?
Speaker 1:Yes, it is.
Speaker 2:Arrow, arrow, yes or no, and then you follow.
Speaker 1:I do the same thing with video games, except my limit is 20. So I was like is this a good game? Yes, do you want it? Yes, is it less than $20? No, then I don't buy it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of my 25 is my board game limit, 20 is my video game limit. Anyways, the game that I impulse bought is called Compile and I watched. You know what's funny? I didn't even watch the whole thing. There's a video by Shut Up and Sit Down and they were just like is this the best small box card game in the last blah, blah, blah? Watch to find out. And then I just looked at a couple comments on YouTube and they said it's great, and so I was like I better order this before you cannot find it anywhere. And guess what? You cannot find it anywhere.
Speaker 2:Can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 1:And we have it, so suck it. You can come to our house and play it, but you can't, because we'll be playing it, because it's only two player. Wait in line, so we played it. I learned how to play it today with our son. It's good. Like I don't know the rules very well. I'm not a good rule reader and then executor if that makes sense, yes. Like it's hard for me to read a rule and then play the game. I'd rather I don't know like have someone else read the rule.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Probably.
Speaker 1:And then figure it out, Like I'm better at listening to someone do that and then figuring it out from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's like like a two-player head-to-head game.
Speaker 1:It's supposedly like really close to a game called Land, air and Sea Land Air and Sea, which is a. It's like a two-player battle game where you have different lanes of land, air and sea and you put vehicles and weapons in those. It's like military Gotcha. And so you have like three columns of cards that you try to get 10 points in, and the first 10 points in that column, um will win the column, and you try to get all three of your columns to 10 points okay, so that reminds me a lot of like rad lands it's a little rad lands except different, there's different columns or different lanes and if you remember back in the day, smash Up, that was kind of similar right.
Speaker 1:Just get to the limit before your partner and you win that area. But this is more like just beat your partner to the punch.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right. After one playthrough, how do you feel?
Speaker 1:I feel good. I think there's a bunch of rules that we missed. After reading it and watching a quick video, yeah. And it's. I think it could be good, like could be way better than what I experienced.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Because the first time it's just like. You know, I don't really know, we're also watching football. Well, yeah, so that was also going on and I like the aesthetic of it. It's like very like computery. Compile is a computer word, so like everything is like clear your cache, which means like if you have too many cards in your hand or you know, throw it in the trash or reboot, and it's like okay, kind of weird at some point, samey yeah. But the cards are very cool. They have cyberpunk-ish highlights.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's pretty fun. We'll all need to play that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we should. I think I mentioned card games last episode too. Maybe we'll just do a card game extravaganza in the next couple shows. Just not do a deep dive dive, but just touch on what, what we've been or what I've been playing, and um kind of just check in and see what's fun. I don't know well, because we didn't start we didn't talk about star wars unlimited, really no, that's true.
Speaker 2:Really early on in our podcasting journey we did like a star wars extravaganza episode, um, and then we also did close to that, I think a ravensburger oh yeah, we did ravensburger like ravensburger because we had, like jaws, jurassic park and like another one. Yeah um, so we did a villainous, villainous, and so we did those and we've done a solo extravaganza. So I think, think we should. It's time to do a card game, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think I've been on a card game kick, so just cards in general. Like I think I said again, I want to get into like basketball cards again. I think, that'd be fun this summer season. So, like, just like collecting cards, and it's fun to see them, it's fun to like see what you can do and also play games at the same time. Except Pokemon is not my jam, I know Our son loves it. It was just like I think I was like two or three years too old for the perfect age when that hit.
Speaker 2:For Pokemon.
Speaker 1:So everyone who's a couple years younger than me knows it all.
Speaker 2:I think there was a gap, but I just know the famous pokemons and like.
Speaker 1:And then there was now it's popular, super popular again. Yes, but yeah, so compile, check it out. It's a, it's a cool game. If you can find it, I recommend it again. It's the. It's under the 25 limit there you go.
Speaker 2:For the impulse buy yeah. For the impulse buy yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was. I think it was a big hit at gen con, much like, uh, the game we're talking about today, rock Hard 1977. So anything else you want to say at the top of the show before we jump into talking about that game?
Speaker 2:No, I would say that was a good opener, and now it's time for the headliner.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, Rock on.
Speaker 2:This episode is sponsored by ShowIt. Are you stuck in a boring website template? Maybe you don't even know where to start. Experience the true creative freedom with the drag and drop simplicity of a ShowIt website. Our website, marriedandboredcom, is a ShowIt website and we love how simple it is to create. Get started for free at showitco, you won't be disappointed and we're back.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was just trying to be like a radio dj coming up, coming up, skulls plays Dash Diner and that's how you start the game. So the game we're talking about today everybody is called Rock Hard 1977. Another banger from Gen Con this past summer. Very popular during that time and even before that we snagged this just at on regular release. Yeah, after gen con. Um, it has well, we'll talk about it in a minute, but like for me, the perfect theme, uh, of a previous life that I lived and also like it's like you're, it's like you know, the quantum, the multiverse you know this is.
Speaker 2:There is a christian out there who took his musical ability to the extreme?
Speaker 1:yeah, and maybe my addictive personality as well um, yeah, maybe everyone loves me hi angela, let's talk about um, this game rock hard 1977. It is I. I was gonna just list some cool facts about the game before we get started. Yeah, yeah, the publisher is Devere, which is a game, a publisher that we have a couple games by One of your favorite games, which is Lacrimosa, I believe.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean if I got the chance to play it with you, which is another music game, which is kind of funny, I know, or ironic, that they both have, it's true, very vast different ends of the musical spectrum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know you like rock and classical.
Speaker 1:I do like classic rock.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of like if you put them together. Okay, right.
Speaker 2:And it's more like you know 1777. Yeah, not 1977.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's designed by Jackie Fox, who's actually an actual rock star in the 70s. She played bass for the Runaways, which is the same band that Joan Jett was in. So if you know, not like the I Love Rock and Roll Joan Jett same person, but like if you ever heard the song Cherry Bomb, where they just scream like Cherry Bomb and it's like oh, that's exactly it.
Speaker 2:Do we have to pay royalties?
Speaker 1:No, did you know what song it was by the time I said that?
Speaker 2:I was being a little sarcastic.
Speaker 1:Okay, everyone knows that song for sure, but so apparently a lot of like the events and gigs and places you can go are based on things that she experienced in her life as a rock star. Okay, that's cool, and now she's playing games or creating games, which is a great transition, also the transition that I would like to do from my musical career into board gaming.
Speaker 2:It sounds ideal.
Speaker 1:So, anyways, I've talked way too much uh about this game. Angela, why don't you describe what this? How to actually not how to play it, but like what you're going to be doing?
Speaker 2:yeah. So rock hard is a worker placement game for two to five players. It also has some set collection in there, but that's minor. Each player will take on the role of an up-and-coming musician trying to make it out in the biz and you're going to take actions to try to improve your chops, your reputation and your songs, all trying to earn the most fame. If you want, you might need a little something extra during that journey so you can take some candy to help you get more done. Something extra during that journey so you can take some candy to help you get more done. But beware, because the more you take, the higher the risk.
Speaker 1:So that's my disclaimer about candy and by candy you mean booger, booger sugar yeah, yeah, I think everybody knows what candy is. We've been watching a lot of breaking bad, and I know it's not about this, but it's like cocaína.
Speaker 2:Cocaína yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's how you say it. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know Cocaine.
Speaker 1:Cocaine. So there you go. It's a worker placement game and you're going to be just trying to make your way through life as a musician yeah, um so leah angela, start this off. Um, what does it take to get this game going?
Speaker 2:we just set up this game not for the first time, but again before recording this episode to play it through with our kids and we both just looked at each other and I think you said like I hate the setup for this game.
Speaker 1:It's terrible.
Speaker 2:It is a little tedious. There are a lot of mini decks.
Speaker 1:Terrible.
Speaker 2:So you do have to shuffle a lot of mini card decks and set those up. I do think it takes up quite a big play area. Yeah, you know you expect a big war or strategy game like battle strategy game to take up a lot of space. I wouldn't have expected this one to take up as much space as it does. Part of that has to do with the player board, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But and then there's no like yeah, so I just feel like it takes a lot of space, lots of components to deal with. I don't think it's the hardest game to set up, but it can be a little it's the mini cards.
Speaker 1:There's so many mini decks. The thing that is positive for me about the mini decks in this game is that they have a place to go on the board the ones that you're constantly using, which is nice, because usually it's just like and set this aside to draw to draw from and it's like no, you need to have a spot for this, like, and so this one does a good job of doing that.
Speaker 1:True, especially with all like the um, the hangouts, like there's different hangout locations, and like random gigs and stuff like that and there's a spot for those. I get it when you're doing it for setup cards. It's like, hey, pick this, choose one of these cards, and it's with you the whole rest of the game and then you get rid of the rest, like that's fine, um but if it's going to be constant, it needs a spot on the board.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. So yeah, it is. It's a little tedious to set up, and I think the same goes for the teardown. The teardown's not any easier Because by the end of the game all the different meeple token colors are on different places of the board. So you're redoing that. We like to store our game by player color almost always.
Speaker 1:I mean, come on, guys, it makes sense.
Speaker 2:I mean it makes sense in our brain store our game by player color almost always?
Speaker 1:I mean come on, guys, it makes sense. I mean, it makes sense in our brains. So you just throw somebody a baggie of orange and they have everything you need to go.
Speaker 2:Exactly so we think it makes less sense. Sometimes games I don't remember how this one came to us, but sometimes games come to you with, like all of the I don't know what they're well, it's just like the vp tokens in one day.
Speaker 1:It's like like components are like, yeah, together, like all the stars, no matter what color they are are all together, and so we like to sort them out by color.
Speaker 2:Um, so re-sorting that out at the end is just as tedious. All the mini-cards have to go back, oh my gosh, so it's not the greatest experience to set up in Teardown.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the past few games that we've played and one of them we will probably talk about in a couple weeks, septima. We set up that game and I was like what is going on? There's so much to set up so much, and that one took a bunch of table space as well. So I don't know if that's like a new trend with newer games, because it just seems like it in a way. Like Arx is a newer game that we've played a lot of, and the one we talked about last week, harvest it doesn't have as much of a table space, it doesn't take as much real estate, but everybody does have a bigger. Much of a table space doesn't take as much real estate.
Speaker 1:Right, but everybody does have a bigger than normal player board than they used to be in the past. So I feel like that's kind of like the trend of the games we've been playing recently.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's just interesting.
Speaker 2:So that feeds well into the next thing we want to talk about is components Like what does this game come with? What's good, what's bad? Components like what does this game come with? What's good, what's bad? Uh well, the first thing that I think about with components on this game is that it's just a dump box.
Speaker 1:There's no, there's no storage anything no, it's just it did come with a bunch of baggies, which is great, but also, you know, you can put a bunch of baggies in a trash bag and it's like look, come play this game right, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2:It's like this game was just thrown in the box, not in a way that's like, oh, it was damaged or destroyed, but it's just no, I mean it's packaged differently.
Speaker 1:When it's shipped to you, we get it, but then when, like when you want to have to be able to play it easily, you'd be well benefited to buy yourself a folded space insert or print your own. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yes, so that's the first thing I think of, which is a con, of course, but there are a lot of good things. I think the component quality overall is really good.
Speaker 1:Yes, make sure of a lot of wood tokens, like some player pieces are wooden, and then you also have some really cool acrylic meeple. They're not even meeple, it's just your character.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then talk about the player board. I know it takes up space so that you'll have to weigh whether it's worth it for you, but it does.
Speaker 1:The way it is is really cool. Yeah, it just looks like a marshall amp, like a marshall cab. If you know what that is, it's an old school guitar amp. And so you have like real dials at the top and they go to 11 like they should not just 10, you go to 11 because then it's like really, rock and roll if you've ever seen spinal tap, um, and so that's really cool.
Speaker 1:So you track your progress on those dials, um, there is also a recess portion where you put your character, the character sheets. This is they're they're.
Speaker 2:They're overly large for what they are that's true, but it does hold too many cards you do have to put too many cards on there.
Speaker 1:That's true, and so it does it's. It's cool, I'm not. It's not a bad thing no but if I had to like change one thing, it's just like okay, let's change up the player board just maybe a little smaller, yeah to to accommodate space.
Speaker 1:I guess I don't know, yeah, there's quite a lot of art in this game and that's cool yeah, it all lends itself to the whole total package or whatever, but yeah, it's really neat and so, like you can, when you pick your player character, you just insert your your player board into the amp and then you're good to go, which is cool, yeah, and I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 2:Duh theuh the dials. That's cool.
Speaker 1:And the amp turning on and off with your oh, if you have to go to rehab or not To recovery, so which we'll talk about, I'm sure, in the later sections.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think it does a really good job with its components in general.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean we have to talk about a couple more things too. Like, the player pieces are acrylic and so it has a really cool you can. They're one-to-one representation of what the um image is on your player board. And it's just shrunk down, uh, into, like this little acrylic standing. So that's really cool. It's not just like, Like you know, a meeple Like a Candyland meeple.
Speaker 1:Or just like a regular meeple, and this guy's like hey, he's a rock star, look at him. And he's just an orange star guy Like hey, look at me, it's actually the person you're playing. So that helps a lot. And then, probably my favorite, is the money.
Speaker 2:Oh the money. Yeah, the money is very close to an actual United States dollar bill.
Speaker 1:It. I, yeah, I'm debating. It's paper money, which in a board game these days is rare. Usually it's coins, right, it's like oh, and then you get metal coins, so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which wouldn't make sense for this game.
Speaker 1:I guess maybe not.
Speaker 2:Because why would you be earning Coins, coins?
Speaker 1:I mean, I played in an arena and I only got $3. So I mean, maybe that's the life of a rock and roller, but $3?.
Speaker 2:Maybe everything should have like a K after it.
Speaker 1:Or just a zero at least.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so the money is really cool. It feels weirdly like real money. It's not like just paper, it's not Monopoly.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:It's just, I would say it's maybe what? 60% the size of a regular dollar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little narrower.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's for sure. But it does, I mean, unless you're holding a dollar right next to it, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:No, it feels like real money. Yeah, it's kind of funny like that.
Speaker 2:That quality is cool. The rule book it's not my favorite. My favorite is like the Linenfield rule books that Stonemaier always has and Keymaster always has they do well yeah. But it feels like a newspaper. Oh really, yeah, master always has, I feel like, but, um, it feels like a newspaper. So really, yeah, I I do like those extra touches where you just at some point during opening, unboxing, looking through the components, you think, hey, somebody did something like thought about this.
Speaker 1:They went extra, they made a decision that was different than the norm.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so I like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really cool. I mean overall it has some great. It does have good components. There's nothing like. Nothing screams. This is cheap. No, you know, you get some cards that are extra thin, or you get some really cheap like wooden meeples and you can see like if I just pressed really hard the tip of the star would come off you know what I mean. Like there you can kind of feel that in some of them.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and this game just wouldn't make sense with um the metal money.
Speaker 1:So at first I was like man, I wish this had metal. But the more we've played it I've been like oh the paper's cool, Paper's really cool, it's really neat.
Speaker 2:Okay, so how accessible is learning to play? How easy is it to learn? What do you think, christian?
Speaker 1:Okay. So if you would have asked me this a month ago, like when we first got it, or previous to that, I would have said this is a hard game to learn. Yes, oh, okay but then we relearned it in the past week or two and then we just, we literally just taught it to our 8 and 11 year old yeah and they picked it up so fast so fast, and so now I was just like okay, it's, maybe it was just the time that I was learning it.
Speaker 1:I was like you know, I don't get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's not always best to start playing a new game at 10 at night.
Speaker 1:I don't think it was that, but it might have been. I might have been in one of my moods where I'm just like, hey, it's a three-day weekend, we're going to play games all weekend. We're going to play games all weekend, yeah, and so that was like the fifth game we played. So it is possible.
Speaker 2:That's true. Yeah, I'm a little bit thrown on this one too. I feel like if you've got someone that loves the rock theme or just like, Like geodes. Yeah, like minerals, yeah, ink. No. The rock hard theme Rock and roll, rock and roll. The rock hard theme, rock and roll, rock and roll. I feel like that could stretch to a lot of different generations as well.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Because there's people that actually lived.
Speaker 1:Lived it.
Speaker 2:Through the 70s and weren't just babies and born then, but they actually went to a concert in 1977.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then there's people that are more like our age, which it's maybe we're rocking in the 80s, but have loved classical rock. And there's people that are like rediscovering all that now. So, anyway, I feel like it has a big reach and I feel like the theme can help someone.
Speaker 2:Want to learn it? Yeah. And then, once we rediscovered it, it does feel pretty simple where it's like okay, every round, each player gets one action in the day, one action in the night, one action in the after hours. So it's, it's. I don't find myself having to look at the reference sheet a lot no, the turns are very structured yeah there's not a lot of options in each of those phases.
Speaker 1:If you think about the game Harvest which we just talked about, another worker placement game there's a lot of options. There are so many open spots, but in this game it's pretty limiting. It's daytime, right. There's only and I'm just going to guess here there's maybe eight actions you can take in the daytime, and maybe in each phase like that doesn't seem like a lot, and if you're playing with five people, by the time it gets to you yeah, it's like I only have four that I can choose from now.
Speaker 1:So um it's and yeah it, I don't know I don't know what I was going with that, but it's and yeah it, I don't know. I don't know what I was going with that.
Speaker 2:The simplicity of the phases, lends itself to teaching people.
Speaker 1:That helps a lot, because I was very confused the first time we did it on how that worked.
Speaker 2:Right Um, now you have an aunt and an uncle.
Speaker 1:I have many.
Speaker 2:Shout out to the shallows. Oh, yeah, and uncle I have many shout out to the shallows, oh yeah, um, who like to come down to the valley?
Speaker 1:yeah, from up north yeah phoenix valley to see concerts they go to.
Speaker 2:They've probably seen stevie nicks like 13 times so they are like heavy into the theme of rock Hard 1977, but I can't picture them liking this game.
Speaker 1:Hey, cousin Ryan, let us know, would your parents play this game? I'm guessing no. I feel like your mom would play this more than your dad, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:So I feel like there is a limit to like okay, there's people that are heavy into the theme of rock and roll but you can't take someone who has no idea what a modern board game is yeah, they're more bunco people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, just roll those dice. But everything else is what you would find in a typical worker placement. Once you go to a spot, no one else can go there. You have end of game goals that you have to keep track of. You have personal goals you have to keep track of.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:And then there's ways to upgrade your personal person Personal person, your character, so to speak, or your band so that you can earn more money as the game progresses. Yeah, so there's all these things you're keeping in mind as you're going through, so that can get somewhat overwhelming. And iconography is good in this game, yes, but it does take a couple times to realize what it all means.
Speaker 2:Sure yeah, Once you do, though I feel like the board does a good job of reminding you. Yeah, what everything does and is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes I feel like there's a lot of icons on this board. True what everything does and is. Yeah, sometimes I feel like there's a lot of icons on this board.
Speaker 2:True, and it is one of those.
Speaker 1:Like if you if we're going to compare it to other. Um work placement, yeah, so like if you think of, like the classics, like viticulture, yep dune imperium and then we're going to throw harvest in there okay those three boards look so much nicer and are more thematic to the experience than this one.
Speaker 2:Okay, I might push back a little on. Dune is very intimidating Dune Imperium like the board.
Speaker 1:Okay, there's a lot going on there. I'm just feeling, maybe it just looks more like Dune.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, no, I get that yeah.
Speaker 1:But this one in my mind it's just very square, like literally yeah, so there's spots for your characters to go, and then it just says what they do and there might be a little picture of a bar. I don't know what they could have done to make it more cohesive and meld it together Harvest is a whole farm, so you see a sprawling farm.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So there's cool stuff like that to look at on the board, but that's my only thing about like this board. It could be a little bit more interesting yeah, okay, I could see that.
Speaker 2:Um, okay, let's talk about the final three are always my favorite the fun, the immersive and the replayability. Yeah, I mean I feel like these are fun, these always like they meld together like classic rock, right?
Speaker 1:so like three, four and five equals 11, 12 actually when you add them all together. So let's 12 this up and just talk about them in one big lump lump of candy.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, as previously discussed in the what's up section, I like my stuff ordered okay, so let's reverse that and just talk about how fun it is christian's gonna lump his together. I'm gonna talk about mine separate. We can do that right yeah, totally we're different. We're different people uh, I mean fun. Who doesn't want to be a rock star?
Speaker 1:I don't know it's fun a nerd yeah, you're a nerd I am a nerd, but I want to be a rock star uh, yeah, I feel like it is fun to try to become a famous person.
Speaker 2:I think the theme is fun for us because we both are musicians. I do think it's a little more fun to play with higher player count.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's talk about that, Because the first couple of times we played, we played with two. Yeah, we finally got a four player game. Discuss.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of hard to differentiate for me. Maybe as I talk I'll figure it out. But in Harvest, when we played two player, you also have to play the mayor who covers up spots.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Mayor McCheese.
Speaker 2:I felt like that one did a better job of the two player experience than this one.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because this one, you do have to have another. It's not a player, it's just a way for the blocks to cover up different spots on the board.
Speaker 1:I think it's called Rising Star, and so it's like somebody who's even less popular than you that's taking up space on the board.
Speaker 2:There you go. It's taking up space on the board. There you go. So the thing I don't like about that one is that it's always the same for every game.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's no variance.
Speaker 2:There's no variable, there's no like okay, draw the card and see where their cube gets placed. It's like at the start of every two player game. These three options are not available.
Speaker 1:And you know what they are. They're ones you want to start the game with.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and then the next round. These three options are always the next.
Speaker 1:It's like a natural progression too. So it's like the first one. It's like you can gain three money to go here and it's just like OK, well, I can't keep gain three money, so I'm gonna do this instead yeah. And then the next one he takes up the space of is like the thing you just did, so you can't spend what you just got, and it's like come on, you stupid band so that okay, so that maybe we would talk about in the fun factor the part of I love worker placements yeah I do feel like this one is can tend to be pretty brutal with limited spaces.
Speaker 2:and I say that like hesitating, because I like worker placement. For that exact reason, because I like the idea of For the brutality. No More like okay, what's plan B? What can we do now?
Speaker 1:You like that I?
Speaker 2:do Well. I like the planning.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But if my plan doesn't work out because someone took it, I like the strategy of trying to like. Okay, what's the plan now?
Speaker 1:The pivot.
Speaker 2:Um, but I don't feel like this one lends itself well to pivots, because sometimes there is one thing and only one thing that everyone needs to do, and what there's, there's just no other. It's not like you can't do anything else, but everyone wants a record deal.
Speaker 1:There's one slot that's for a record deal, brutal in a two-player game that I mean even in four.
Speaker 2:It's worse in four well, because there's there's two slots in four for a record deal. Oh, sorry For getting the tape. I'm thinking.
Speaker 1:Oh, recording a demo.
Speaker 2:Right. So everyone wants to record a demo and then in the I guess the record deal is the better example.
Speaker 1:There's only one. There's only one, and that's how you get money.
Speaker 2:Right. So you say, okay, well, this day phase Christian got it, next day phase I could get it.
Speaker 1:But not if you're third in the turn order and your number two player takes it.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I feel like it's limiting in a not. It doesn't lend itself to a mental challenge.
Speaker 1:It's just frustrating yeah, and then we experienced that with our kids because our son was trying to get a record deal for like three turns yeah and he could have had. He chose a less lucrative spot the turn previous to get a higher turn order. But also it's like well, do I just want to like get $1 to go first next turn and then guarantee that I get this, or do I want to like get $7? Like, sometimes the swing is that big.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's a huge swing, especially when we throw in the candy.
Speaker 1:Candy.
Speaker 2:Which allows you to do extra actions, but there's some things that you can't do. While you're on candy, while you're on candy, so, like one of them is going to bed early, which guarantees you first position in the next day, however, you literally forfeit your after hours.
Speaker 1:It's a whole turn.
Speaker 2:You forfeit everything on that turn.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this how does it work if I was thinking about this if more than one person goes to bed early?
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's a limited space or not. No, you don't know if it's a limited space or not. No, you don't. But if it is, if it's an open space. They say the most recent person to go to bed early is. That's backwards, Okay.
Speaker 1:If you go to bed first, you're less tired in the morning.
Speaker 2:I know, but I don't know. It said the leftmost right, the leftmost meeple.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so maybe that's the first, maybe it is.
Speaker 2:maybe we were playing that a little wrong, but also I don't think that situation ever happened. No, because people went to bed early no, I mean, we all have lives yeah, we all have after hours things to do I gotta go to the club? Uh, yeah. So I think it's fun. I think that there's things that will prevent us from playing this over and over and over again, because that would get frustrating for me Going to bed early. The limited options would get frustrating for me. I don't know. What do you think?
Speaker 1:Well, I will just say that I haven't felt the brutality of this one as hard as some other ones.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, so like maybe it's just.
Speaker 1:maybe I'm just like, yeah, man rock on whatevs. Like I'll just, I'm chill, bro, you are chill. When's the next gig? Um, I haven't felt that there have been times, I've just been like dang it yeah I need this, like the, the game we played, just you and I.
Speaker 1:I didn't get a stupid demo tape for like five rounds and you had it in round two and just whatever was going my way. I just couldn't keep enough money to record a demo, to then get records so that I could quit my job. You know, like there's a whole like step-by-step process of becoming a rock star according to this game and I just couldn't do it. But did I win or did I get close?
Speaker 2:lost like I lost by five, really close and that was getting the record.
Speaker 1:Deer wouldn't have changed that, so it was. That was good and so, like I feel like every, even though I've been very close to either, I've either won or got very close to winning, and so I don't feel as much as like the oh, I needed that Right as opposed to maybe like Viticulture. I feel like it's pretty brutal and well, I didn't play this, but you played it recently Abomination is like super cutthroat.
Speaker 2:I feel like Okay, but what this game is missing? That Abomination has a bumping mechanic.
Speaker 1:Abomination has bumping. I was thinking like like apiary does, but I didn't remember so you can pay someone off oh yeah, this one needs that. You had to like bribe them with. Can't give them drugs yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:This one needs something where it's like okay, you want to take the space I just took, give me something. You know it needs that, even if it's only allowed once per phase or something Like hey, you can only bump one person per phase, yeah, or if you just like switch turnovers with them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, something like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like it needs something to make it a little more forgiving. This one might have maybe this goes down into replayability, so I'll talk about it there but immersive.
Speaker 1:I mean it's hugely.
Speaker 2:Hugely immersive.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Yeah, I joked. When we were playing it this afternoon I was like what playlist are we listening to all?
Speaker 2:your plays. Well, I didn't take it as a joke. I was like, yeah, let's do it and our kids are like no, you're music boring I think that it does a really good job with the whole, the whole mechanic where you start as an up-and-comer, so you have a job, yeah we didn't even talk about jobs like a real world job, you know, not a musician, I was a truck driver you were a truck driver um an overnight truck driver
Speaker 2:that's true um, and you can keep your job by going during one of the indicated phases. So it's like you have a day job or you have a night job or you have an after hours job. So if you forfeit your anything in the music scene to go do your job during that phase, you get paid like a job would yep but then eventually your music career starts taking off. So you skip your job. And then, if you skip your job three times, you have quit you or you get fired.
Speaker 1:You get fired. It's probably. However you want to look at it, let go um and then you become a professional musician in this economy so I really like that mechanic.
Speaker 2:I think it is so clever and just so realistic. I really like that actions. So in the day that's when you can go for a disc, like a dj interview, or you can record you're doing the business or yeah.
Speaker 2:Or you can negotiate a better record deal, or you can get um a crew like hire a promoter and stuff like that yeah, and then in the nighttime that's when you go to your venue, like you, you play your gigs, and then in the after hours that's where you go to the clubs you go and schmooze it up backstage, or, if you're, uh, maybe nerdy, you go to bed early, um, or you record a demo tape, because that's the only time you can find studio space to record your demo tape. So I feel like that is all very, very thematic.
Speaker 1:And then the candy it's very candy is so funny because everyone knows what it is and like I don't know how else they to put it in the game, right like it's like hey, I have this idea that you can do extra actions by taking candy and everyone's like you mean drugs yeah it's like. No, it's like and I get it, it's fine like they probably wouldn't be able to sell it, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah. In some way, but and it's like in the directions. I think it talks about anything that has that that helps you get more done, so like caffeine or candy or it says that yeah it represents that addictive thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that helps you get more done it gives you more energy, right like yeah so you draw like uh, you draw a card called a sugar rush card.
Speaker 2:If you, if you decide to spend candy, which is hopefully going to give you another action, so you say, okay, I'm turning in this candy, taking it, swallowing it, and what does it give me? You turn over your card. If it was sugar-free candy. You get nothing. Rip off but you also don't get any penalty. So there you go. You know, a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.
Speaker 1:I've heard that before it was sugar-free. So there you go. Nbd.
Speaker 2:But it could give you up to two extra actions or most likely one extra action, but that will increase your craving for it and you have to roll to see if your craving, like if you're meeting your craving, and if you can't meet your craving, then you crash, you crash yeah. And that's when your amp gets shut off, and that's when you sacrifice your whole next daytime action to go to recovery.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is such.
Speaker 1:You get those electrolytes you sleep in. It's such a good mechanic, it's so good.
Speaker 2:I just love it because you know it involves a little bit of that. Press your luck.
Speaker 1:That our son loves yeah but he didn't do it this last game at all that's true but he did have a game. He had a game and a game. End game goal to not have any candy.
Speaker 2:So he got one and then he spent it and that was it so I feel like you know you're like oh, I want to get extra actions, because I don't know if it sounds like it to a person just sitting there listening who hasn't played this game. But one action per phase there. If you just did that the whole game, you're not going to get much.
Speaker 1:You have to take you have to do it at least twice in the game. I feel like to be successful.
Speaker 2:You have to take some candy, yeah at least twice in the game I feel like. To be successful, you have to take some candy, yeah, um. So I feel like there's always that pull of like, oh, but my cravings now high, so what if I can't roll high enough? To meet it uh, yeah, so there's that risk reward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thrown in there, I do like that I, and I don't have much else to say based on how immersive it is. I enjoy the whole story of it. Right like you start out as nobody, you got to do boring things, you got to make money, you got to give blood, you got to do interviews you have to rehearse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to buy, or maybe you buy or sell candy on the side, like that's part of it, so you could do all that and then eventually you just do music things. And there's different. What I, what I like best, I think, are the different venues. They have like little bars, coffee shops, and then they have like a middle arena and then they have a bigger arena and they have a coliseum and I don't think we've ever got to the coliseum part Because the prerequisites are pretty intense.
Speaker 2:Very intense.
Speaker 1:But if you can get there, you get a ton of points. Yeah, so you know it's fun. It's something to work towards in the next couple times that we play this game, to like to do that. I think it's fun.
Speaker 2:I did want to ask you what you think of the art style.
Speaker 1:It's very cartoony.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know how to describe it.
Speaker 1:It's not Maybe more like Archer. Do you know this? It's not maybe more like Archer. Do you know the it's archery? So it's like you can tell someone's a cartoon but like they're very like adult looking and if they are quote, adult looking, you know that.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yes, so that's like it's there. Yeah, and it's, but it's not like Bob's Burgers cartoon, it's more.
Speaker 2:No, it's not Looney Tunes cartoon no. I obviously I'll say disclaimer up front. This is not a deal breaker at all. So the art is done well. I just I wonder if it's like a little hokey for me. Okay, I just I wonder if it's like a little hokey for me. Okay, I don't, I wanted something more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would be the alternative?
Speaker 2:Well, you know how we did. I think we did an episode a while back on Libertalia, so Libertalia was re Imagined.
Speaker 1:Imagined Yep.
Speaker 2:So libertalia was reimagined, imagined yeah, as more of a it was like anamorphic or whatever that word is.
Speaker 1:It went from like real pirates to like animals right so I think I wanted like more uh, realistic art okay, I think it's pretty.
Speaker 2:Yes, again, not a deal breaker.
Speaker 1:No, I know, you were just hoping for more for you, more realism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, yeah, like I wanted the characters to look like you had taken a picture of someone, oh yeah. On the stage.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Instead of you're like oh, that's clearly animated.
Speaker 1:Sure, it's a drawing, yeah, okay, yeah, I I don't. For me, I would say no I don't agree, okay, but you know, agree to disagree.
Speaker 2:Some would say some would say that's what makes our marriage work christian. That's why we're bored oh wait that's not yeah okay, is it worth it?
Speaker 1:I mean, at this point you're probably like, yeah, totally, um, they're not gonna say no, uh, I'm having a great time playing this game. It makes me, it makes me want to play guitar, right, yeah, and so, like, for me personally, I'm like okay, so if I'm gonna be a rock star, do I play guitar or do I play? Where is the shortest distance between two lines? Where the slope? I don't know what I'm trying to say. How do I get there quicker?
Speaker 1:by being a good bass player or a good guitar player? Probably a bass player. So there you go, I'm going to play bass tonight.
Speaker 2:Okay, there you go.
Speaker 1:That's all I have to say.
Speaker 2:Okay, so maybe more about the game.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry. I like this game. It is worth it.
Speaker 2:I think it's worth it. For Christian just theme alone, I think it's worth it. I don't think that it's one that I'm like dying to play again. I'm playing it right after. I can see it being played at our table more than once a year for sure. I feel like it could use a few more options.
Speaker 1:On the board.
Speaker 2:On the board. I feel like it could use some more variety with managers. I feel like it could use some more variety with random gigs, I feel.
Speaker 1:So the expansion is called rock hard 1977. It's called rock hard colon 1977. Colon hits the road and so you get a van to go to other venues. Okay, so everyone has a van. They also have to maintain.
Speaker 2:Oh no, oh no, I don't like that.
Speaker 1:And then you can upgrade that to a tour bus, and then you can upgrade that to a private jet.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, Look at that.
Speaker 1:So call me.
Speaker 2:Call me. Yeah, I just feel like, if we're talking about replayability specifically, already I know what the six managers are.
Speaker 1:there's like that's true, there's only six, which is kind of lame, like I thought there'd be like 20 yeah, there just needs to be more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, variety there, and I feel like you use nine random gigs every game.
Speaker 1:There's 18 so we've seen them all so we've seen them all yeah, I I just and, by the way, those random gigs in the last three rounds of the game are so good so good it's just like. You want to go on late night tv? Here's a bazillion points. You want to host the oscars?
Speaker 2:a bazillion more, you know like right, just fun stuff like that uh, yeah, so I I do feel like it. Maybe there's some areas that could have been improved to make it more replayable and varied each time. I I was gonna ask you does this one feel like we have maybe since changed our opinion? But our first opinion of lost ruins of arnak was that there was one path to victory and if you don't do that, you don't win. Do you feel that way on this one?
Speaker 1:I still feel that way about arnak, by the way oh, you do okay I, I don't know. I feel like I got close to winning without doing quote, what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was just gigging.
Speaker 2:You were just gigging Without a record deal, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I had to still work my truck job. Yeah, it's true, which is probably, like you know, I did gigs and still had to work at the coffee shop in Minneapolis, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, I can get behind that.
Speaker 1:So I don't think there's one path to victory. I think the game wants you to take a certain path, but I don't think you need to, because in the game that we just played, everyone else except for me was at almost, I think, think the top tier of the record deals. I was at the bottom. I just had the first one, so I was just getting the least amount of money every time and I think I got second place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you did.
Speaker 1:So I didn't do poorly, no you didn't, I just wasn't getting as much money.
Speaker 2:That's true, I guess. Yeah, I don't know what concrete example I can give that makes this one feel more limiting.
Speaker 1:It just feels that way to you Than other worker placements.
Speaker 2:It just feels that way.
Speaker 1:I don't know. You need to eat more candy.
Speaker 2:I love the candy in this game. All right, anything else.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. I think we're having a great time. There is no solo mode, correct, there is not no, so that's something that we haven't explored. But the majority of our play time is two players Played one game with four. Five would just clog up the board more and make it even more limiting for you, but it would be fun to try with five. Yeah, totally. Maybe it's way harder, um, but I would say the two-player game like it doesn't limit it enough. So if it's just two players, still definitely worth it. If you, especially if you're into the theme um and you just like, or if you're a worker place placement fan, I think it's like a good.
Speaker 2:It's a good worker middle of the road slash, beginner one yeah, all right, we will be right back to talk about what thoughts or ideas came up during the game. Okay, so we talked about Rock Hard 1977.
Speaker 1:We did.
Speaker 2:Are you still here?
Speaker 1:No, I was just. I was singing a song in my head.
Speaker 2:Okay, did you want to sing it for everyone?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that in the early 90s, during the commercials for cartoons, it was like after these messages will be right back.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's what was going through my head, okay, so I just sang it.
Speaker 2:In your head.
Speaker 1:And out loud. Well, there you go.
Speaker 2:I'll do another one later oh, great, something to look forward to. Uh so, thoughts, topics that came up while playing this board game candy. So this this makes us think of the topics that, quote unquote, aren't allowed in board games.
Speaker 1:Like taboo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like these taboo things, so cocaine.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's just drugs right, or drugs In general.
Speaker 2:This game didn't go there, right. They didn't say that it's drugs and I don't know if that, but they went there.
Speaker 1:They just called it something else.
Speaker 2:They called it something else. I don't know if there would have been complaints, because it rewards you for taking drugs. However it also there's a great risk the more drugs you take. So I feel like just call a spade a spade on this one, just call it drugs.
Speaker 1:Maybe they couldn't. Maybe they couldn't sell the game to a publisher.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:But then we also had a game for a while that was based on the show Narcos. Remember that?
Speaker 2:It was like a hidden movement game, yeah, and it was just all about like finding Pablo and like murdering him, so like, and that one had literal white cubes representing cocaine, shipments of cocaine, yeah, so I feel like there have been games, or at least that one, where we're like straight up calling cocaine, cocaine sure um, now I don't know if there was more like hey, heads up, you're buying a game called narcos, so what do you expect?
Speaker 1:well, maybe, maybe also this is in this game you are consuming.
Speaker 2:You're not just moving the drugs, you're consuming the drugs.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, I don't know. I'm not a publisher, I don't know what they look for or why they chose this, Probably just to make it more accessible to families. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's just. I mean. I know you could go on and on with different topics about this, but it just makes me think of. The next thing would be our whole struggle with the name secret hitler well, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:I mean I love, love that game we do. We both love it, it's it's so fun and people get so mad playing that game and it's just one of the best of those types of games that I've played a deduction game?
Speaker 1:yeah, but I just I have such a hard time, just just like, why did they choose that? And it's not even if you ignore all of the political things in the united states of the past 10 years, right like, even if you ignore all that, it's still like kind of a poor choice for a name yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't like saying that, I like secret hitler it's like okay and I don't. I didn't always feel that way and I feel like in my in the past, like five to seven years, as my reading has become more serious and I've read a lot of historical fiction, but also nonfiction about World War II and in a way that high school and college history classes never did for me, it kind of dawned on me the horror.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that that was real.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:And then to make a board game about it.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:Feels really icky.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I don't know. But then you know there's games like Black Orchestra. Is that what it's called?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the one about murdering him.
Speaker 2:Right, so you like someone plays Hitler.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 2:And someone, or maybe not Hitler, but the Axis and Allies.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:So I don't know. I know there's tons of content out there about World War II. I feel like that is loaded and I'm not trying to make any enemies. If someone offered to play Secret Hitlerler at our house tonight, I would play it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're gonna play it on our board game weekend because it is always, always a hit right.
Speaker 1:I just maybe, I don't know I wish there was more care taken yeah, I think, man, yeah, it's just not our favorite thing to admit that we like, yeah, right, because it's like, oh, what's your favorite game? It's not my favorite, but if that it's like, wait, what Right? There's also a game, ange and I've been trying to find the name of it and I apologize that I don't know the name of it. It was on the board game Geek Hotness at one point earlier this summer. It was about a strip club, oh yeah, and being a a worker there oh and I think everyone was kind of like what is going on?
Speaker 1:interesting? I didn't look into it very much, um, so that kind of felt I thought of this as you were mentioning, uh, this part of the show. I don't know anything about it, but I was like that's one that you don't see every day.
Speaker 2:Very true, yeah, and and it it's like kind of the discussion with comedy, like is there something that crosses a line or is it the way in which it's done that crosses the?
Speaker 1:board games, art, comedy, art, right, exactly. Um, we're not here to answer that, we're just bringing up.
Speaker 2:No, we're just discussing it. I would be curious to hear what other people think. Not that you have to get on a soapbox and explain your position, but just, is there such thing as a game or a topic that a game can't touch?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you can definitely just text the show. Yeah, that's a cool new feature that not not you know what, not a lot of people are using Come on guys so text the show.
Speaker 1:You can find the link in the show notes from your mobile device. That would be great. Let us know if there's a game that maybe you think took it too far. I'm going to ask you a couple of questions as we wrap up the show here and to our next segment. But do we have any games that fall into this category other than like the cocaine with like? Is there something where it's like man? I wish they did it differently because, like I'm, I'm literally killing 14 people to get my job done in this game.
Speaker 2:Right, you feel icky? Yeah, I don't think so. I mean even Narcos we gave up. Not for that reason.
Speaker 1:No, we had like three games that were just like that Hidden movement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I don't think we do off the top of my head. Can you think of one where there's a boundary that we're kind of close to crossing?
Speaker 1:I don't think so Because the ones that I like are always so fantastical.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like nothing's grounded in reality. Right, this one is very grounded in reality and someone's literal life, and so there's nothing like whatever, I don't care about drugs.
Speaker 2:If you did them or do them whatever, yeah, so like this one, I would give free license to sit just call it drugs, um. But then there's other ones where it's this very gray area like I think I don't know the name of it, but I think there is a game about the Underground Railroad.
Speaker 1:Probably.
Speaker 2:And so that one I would need to learn more about. Honestly, I just don't know enough. But off the top my first impression is okay, we don't touch that. Okay, but again, I don't know it could be done, great I don't know enough about it. So it's this gray area that's just floating out there.
Speaker 1:All right, and you want to lighten up the mood a little bit? From just dark and depressing board game topics to a random quiz I'm going to throw at you.
Speaker 2:Is it like a BuzzFeed quiz?
Speaker 1:It's not a BuzzFeed quiz. That would be really fun and you would know what Harry Potter character you were at the end of this. Yeah, but I don't think you are. So we played Rock Hard 1977.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I'm going to quiz you. I'm going to give you a band that was popular in the 70s.
Speaker 2:Okay, you just got to give me the title of one of their songs. A song, yeah, okay, let's just see if you can do it.
Speaker 1:Okay, we'll start out.
Speaker 2:What if I can sing it, but I don't know the title.
Speaker 1:Then just hum it and I'll tell you what it is. Okay, we'll start out easy, ready, okay.
Speaker 2:That's great. I'm glad you said it was easy.
Speaker 1:The Eagles.
Speaker 2:Hotel California yeah.
Speaker 1:See Easy Okay. Here's another easy one Queen.
Speaker 2:Bohemian Rhapsody.
Speaker 1:Perfect, here's one. We're gonna up the difficulty A little bit, okay, leonard Skinner.
Speaker 2:Um.
Speaker 1:Um Birmingham. We love the governor.
Speaker 2:Oh, sweet Home Alabama, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Uh, two Alright ready.
Speaker 2:We're gonna do two more I always thought sweet home alabama was kid rock oh my gosh, get out of here.
Speaker 1:Um, here's one, um and you. He started in this decade but has been more popular beyond this decade.
Speaker 2:Okay, tom petty free falling, yeah uh how about eric clapton?
Speaker 1:uh yeah, stairway to heaven no, not stairway to heaven.
Speaker 2:What's it called? No, it's Free falling, yeah Easy. How about Eric Clapton? Yeah, stairway to Heaven. Nope, not Stairway to Heaven. What's it called? No Heaven?
Speaker 1:It's crying, it comes out of your eyes when you're crying.
Speaker 2:Tears of Heaven, yeah.
Speaker 1:We know.
Speaker 2:Because his son died.
Speaker 1:Money. Yeah, he fell out a window. Yeah, and finally, here's a tough one Ready.
Speaker 2:Heart Barracuda. Oh, you got it.
Speaker 1:Nice, good job. Did you learn most of those from me or from when we used to play Guitar Hero in my apartment?
Speaker 2:Guitar Hero, okay, guitar Hero.
Speaker 1:All right, thanks everybody for listening to this episode of the Married and Bored podcast. We're going to end this show, as we end every show, and just talk about a few things that are going on beyond board games.
Speaker 2:That is a good title for this segment Beyond Board Games.
Speaker 1:Look at you coming up with ideas. Ange, what's going on with you beyond board games?
Speaker 2:Are you laughing? Because you know what I wrote.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, but also I just think my, my title is so good it's so good, okay?
Speaker 2:um well, after we all get, let's just take a moment appreciating that title shall we a moment of silence?
Speaker 1:no, because silence in a podcast is death okay, well, I'll fill it with something.
Speaker 2:With like yay, yeah, okay, woo, yeah, go get it, boy, great, okay. So I have been really enjoying sunflower seeds.
Speaker 1:That is so why.
Speaker 2:You guys I know you're laughing, shaking your head, rolling your eyes.
Speaker 1:Is it because the baseball playoffs are on? It's not, no.
Speaker 2:I think so. Last time we alluded well, I think I said- we didn't allude to it, we just said we totally just said it. I said nothing was bringing me joy because I can't eat anything.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:So still doing that.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And what I have noticed about myself is that I'm very tired at the end of the day, but that's also our only time to like watch breaking bad and and commune in that way. So, in order to stay up, I would eat candy I would eat candy oh, like the candy candy.
Speaker 2:I would eat like a pint of ice cream 16 oreos you know whatever um, but now to stay awake I can't, so I munch on sunflower seeds they are the ultimate stay awake food, especially for road trips because it's like I'm not really eating much, I'm just, I'm like, it's like mouth fidgeting that's what it is okay, okay, there we go so perfect I'm I and I know I would really love to go into the dill pickle flavor, but for some reason some crazy person put sugar in there and I can't eat that right now.
Speaker 1:So but how many days has it been since we've had, like, refined sugar? It's been like 37 days. Yep, yep, and I just wanted more I just want more.
Speaker 2:It's candy, yeah, so we know. We know how addicted we are to.
Speaker 1:Shudder, yeah, seriously.
Speaker 2:All right. What's bringing you joy?
Speaker 1:Beyond board games, you mean.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, beyond board games in this section, what is bringing you joy?
Speaker 1:Okay, I will say that I haven't really like what's the word I'm looking for Sealed the deal on a lot of these, but I've just really been thinking a lot about and enjoying collecting and thinking about collecting things. True, is it a problem I have, or is it a healthy habit?
Speaker 2:Right now, it's a healthy habit. We are not in hoarder status.
Speaker 1:No. As soon as we have to buy and get to the point where I say we need a storage unit, you can throw everything away.
Speaker 2:Everything, no, okay.
Speaker 1:Just things that I have marked with the green sticky tape.
Speaker 2:Okay, so nothing. Well, yet Okay, as I start divvying out what goes to storage and doesn't, then you can be like okay, green, I think, if you start spending our mortgage payment on toys every month retro toys or if we start to get to hoarder status. I'll let you know.
Speaker 1:Okay. So yeah, that's what I mean. I'll just say I was born in 1983. Yeah, it's a good year it was, so I've just been, I was born in 1983. Yep, it's a good year. It was. So I've just been really into reliving all that stuff. One of my favorite things and I talked about it before is the show and toys called Mask.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Mobile Armor Strike Command K Command with a K Don't get it whatever, but I just love. I found some great offer up steals and deals with that. I've also, uh, transformers. I wasn't as into as a kid, um, but I've gotten some in my adult life too, because I always thought they were cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I don't know, Just in like I found some old cartoons online just to put on my phone for when I can't sleep at 2amm.
Speaker 2:X-Men 97.
Speaker 1:That helped 77 would be interesting. Maybe there's a game coming out called X-Men colon 1977. X-men 97 figurines, so that helps. I have a couple right there and they're so hard to find. Why are adults buying all the toys?
Speaker 2:Seriously, because of people like me, you should start a toy podcast.
Speaker 1:I should, but who would watch or talk about?
Speaker 2:Listen, yep, okay.
Speaker 1:What would we talk about?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I'm not part of that venture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. What would it be called?
Speaker 2:Christian's Toy Chest. Okay, alright.
Speaker 1:Just like Duncan's Toy Chest at Home.
Speaker 2:Alone, would it be called christian's toy chest. Okay, all right, just like duncan's toy chest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, home alone, you mean like my other instagram uh, oh, yeah that's called crispin's toy chest there you go.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Now everyone's gonna follow you on instagram. Yeah, crispin's toy. So like, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I just, I just like looking at those things, I like impulse buying some of that stuff yes, you do I definitely do. I haven't done it in a while, um, which is great, except this one here. But you bought that. You're like, hey, do you want this?
Speaker 2:and I said yes I got you that transformer, so you bought it, yeah um, so I love you there you go. You're welcome, are you is?
Speaker 1:anyone into collecting, like I. I got this from my mom. She collects stuff and we used to go to antique stores when I was like in middle school, junior high, and look for vintage. She liked glassware or whatever jadeite I know too much about jadeite because of that and I would look at vintage Star Wars and I have a whole case of them Well, they're not here Of like the 70s and 80s Star Wars stuff and it's really cool and I still look Like that stuff now is like super hard to find and super expensive. Turns out as you get older, the stuff that you used to that was around when you were younger Gets more and more expensive.
Speaker 2:Because it gets older and older and rarer. How that?
Speaker 1:yeah so, and does anybody have a collection like that? I mean, I'd be interested to to hear what you're into like I don't do gi joes never was big into that like that's kind of like the same era yeah but transformers mask I like. I like legos, but I limit myself to like certain ones, but not old legos that's true.
Speaker 2:You do have a few of your growing up years like yeah and those are.
Speaker 1:I could probably like vintage. Those are cool, but I don't have them like set up or anything. They're just in the garage, maybe with a green sticky tape getting ready oh, there you go real quick.
Speaker 2:Uh, the most recent impulse buy adventure that I went on with christian's toy chest here, um, I went with you to pick up mask the board game, oh no, the white glove experience, yes it was. It was a truck of some sort right uh race car yeah, okay, um, and I was shocked at what happened at the price or no at this transaction, so it was through offer up it was offer up, yeah and we meet it in a parking lot I think burger king yeah and this guy I mean I'm not making fun of him, this was crazy.
Speaker 2:I've never had this kind of service.
Speaker 1:He got out white gloves, yep, and he took every piece and showed you every piece yep like he had a little he put a tv tray down yeah, he had a flip down like tray.
Speaker 2:He like touched all the pieces with the white gloves. He didn't. Everything was immaculate.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was, I was impressed, I've never seen that happen before either, because I've bought some stuff from some weird people on OfferUp. And he was just like, yeah, here you go. And he flipped it down. He's like do you want to look at it, or should I just put it back? He's like you can just put it back, it's fine. It came with a box, which is what I bought it for. I was like I have the box of this one, it's sweet. So I, you know, I bought it and he's. He's like yeah, this just been in my collection for a while and I was getting rid of it and I was like this is great. So he had he literally had white gloves white glove service, just saying if you're selling things on offer up and you pretty legit.
Speaker 1:I haven't opened it since. So it's just it's still in pristine condition from from our guy, but yeah, so that's that's me, just uh thinking about that, trying not to buy everything well, and I'm doing a great job.
Speaker 2:You are doing a great job you're doing a great job, angela.
Speaker 1:how can they contact us and reach out and, if they want to, you know, answer any questions on the show? Obviously, text or they can find us on instagram is probably the best place I'm still having.
Speaker 2:I will say I'm still having problems with our email address, so uh, so Instagram, yeah, message us at married and bored Uh, you can also text the show, which is super cool. Um, just kind of let us know who you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're going to text us, say. If you want to say your name, you can, and where you're from is always fun to know.
Speaker 2:Yeah or give us some sort of name to call you yeah, if you don't want to give your real name um, and guys leave a review on itunes. Oh yeah, it helps other people find us yeah, and we'll read it. And on the show of course, yes, so give, if you're a regular listener or if you are just tuning in, feel free to leave us a wonderful podcast review.
Speaker 1:Yeah, please do.
Speaker 2:All right, guys, I hope you have decided if you're rocking hard in 1977 and if that is for you Until next time.
Speaker 1:Rock on.
Speaker 2:Thanks for listening to this episode of the Married and Bored podcast. And guess what? We have a website where you can listen to podcast episodes and so much more. Website where you can listen to podcast episodes and so much more. Find us at marriedandboredcom, or you can email us at hello at marriedandboredcom, or follow us on Instagram at marriedandbored. Music in this episode is by Joseph McDade. See you next time. You didn't ask what I was reading.
Speaker 1:That's funny.