0:00

321. That

0:02

was a nice neither of us being

0:05

quite sure who was gonna do the clap

0:06

there. Enjoyed that great. I was gonna leave it

0:08

to you, but then I saw you are far away

0:11

from the mics, which was the international symbol

0:13

for I'm not gonna talk right

0:14

now. Yeah. Exactly. So Yeah. There's

0:17

not much room for me to do this here. So if I'm not talking

0:19

the podcast, I'll just do this. For

0:23

the listeners at home, if this gets included

0:25

in the podcast, Matt just tilted his head entirely

0:27

backwards off the back of the quite lush

0:29

sofa he's currently sitting

0:30

on. I am. I'm the boy of luxury now.

0:32

Mhmm. I am literally on the lap of

0:34

Luxury and you are on my lap

0:36

of Luxury, my little

0:38

phone on my lap looking up at me. I

0:41

thought you let's just stop this

0:43

conversation. I thought you were referring to the listeners

0:45

there being on your lap of luxury, and

0:47

you were gonna, like, perfectly segue that into a hallow

0:49

and lock into the shot of a down podcast.

0:51

That's even worse. Yeah. That's

0:53

my one that your face crunched up, your face

0:55

kind of crumpled off to

0:56

go, oh, that's kinda creepy, man. Yeah. Yeah.

0:58

No. No. I wasn't saying that. Don't worry. This is all

1:00

gonna get this is all gonna get deleted and

1:02

fantastic. Yeah. That's fine. The intro will go

1:04

after this anyway. Hello,

1:16

and welcome to the Shutup and sit down

1:18

podcast, a podcast all about board games,

1:21

board games, board games, and

1:23

board games, and the people who love

1:25

board games. That's right. I didn't miss

1:27

you out folks at home because you're listening

1:29

right now to this

1:30

podcast. And the other person listening to this

1:32

podcast right now is Matt. Me.

1:35

It's it's you

1:36

or me. I am a person who loves board

1:38

games, so don't miss me out either. You are

1:40

so worried that you'd been forgotten. There that I'd

1:42

somehow forgotten that I had a co host on

1:44

this episode. It wasn't just Tom Solo

1:46

rambling this time. was worried that

1:49

you'd forgotten that I love board games.

1:52

Do you love I mean, the borders we're gonna talk

1:54

about today, I think we have mixed feelings

1:56

about certainly. But maybe that's

1:58

not representative of our opinions a hole on

2:00

the

2:00

hobby. Right? No, not at all. And I think

2:02

that also, like, even though we have mixed feelings about

2:04

the games that we're talking about today, spoilers. The

2:08

crucial thing about that is that we

2:10

wanted to play them and

2:13

we wanted to love them. And

2:15

I'm really glad I have played both of these

2:17

games because I've added to the the

2:19

kind of textural life

2:22

of them. Yeah. And I think that's why we're gonna be talking about

2:24

these games, if I'm honest, because we play lots

2:26

of games that are just we

2:28

don't like very much, and we never talk about them.

2:30

And we had quite a few in the discussions leading

2:32

up to this podcast in terms of what we're gonna talk about.

2:35

We've had some games that are just disappearing into

2:38

the shut them sit down obscureity bin and that's

2:40

fine because we don't have anything nice to say about them,

2:42

but we also don't have anything interesting to say about them.

2:44

Whereas these games are both kind of

2:46

fascinating, and I'm glad I experienced both

2:48

of them.

2:49

Yes. This is the shut up and sit down podcast,

2:51

a podcast that wants to love board games.

2:54

On this podcast, let's let's get this out of the way.

2:56

Let's tell the people at home what we're talking about this

2:58

week. We're gonna be talking Stationfall,

3:01

a game, about surviving a falling

3:03

space station and trying to accomplish all kinds

3:05

of nefarious, all quite good

3:07

goals on it as it plummets. And

3:09

gonna be talking about deal with the devil.

3:12

A Euro game where one of you is literally

3:14

Satan and one of you Satan's friend

3:17

and the rest of you are just normal

3:19

thanks. Just two games that are

3:21

beautiful. Is people trying

3:23

to get by.

3:25

They're both very, very strange games, and we'll

3:27

get into some big some big crunchy

3:29

chats about them. Should we just should we just dive

3:31

straight in? I think so. I think we need to just

3:33

dive straight into

3:36

space.

3:38

So the first game we're gonna talk about on this podcast

3:40

is a big chunky board game Stationfall.

3:43

This is designed by Matt Ikland and published

3:46

by Ion Game Design. I

3:48

don't even know how I'd start this. I

3:50

I've it's this large

3:53

narrative systems driven

3:56

sandbox game that I would compare

3:58

most closely to something like nemesis

4:00

in the board game world, or if

4:02

you're into your video games, game

4:04

like SpaceDeath Station thirteen, where

4:07

everyone in this game has a role on this

4:09

station. This game goes all the way up to

4:11

nine players and all of those nine players

4:14

are trying to influence these different characters

4:16

who are all on board of a space station

4:18

as it is in the process of falling

4:21

towards the earth. And now how

4:23

many characters are on this Stationfall might

4:25

think? Nine characters, the same number

4:27

as there are players. No. In

4:29

a nine player game, you have like I think

4:31

twenty characters or something

4:33

close to that. Twenty little

4:36

humans and robots who are toggling around

4:38

the station doing nonsense.

4:40

Just a cool twenty different characters

4:43

that potentially you might be playing

4:45

as because, yeah, it's not like it plays up to nine

4:47

players and then you can

4:49

choose from twenty characters. No, there are twenty

4:51

different characters on the ship --

4:53

Yeah. -- potentially wobbling around doing things.

4:55

Mhmm. And which one of them is

4:57

is you, Tom? Which one of them is you?

5:00

Well, you know, but no one else.

5:02

Does. Although actually where

5:04

hold on, are we saying that none of them are you? Because technically

5:07

none of them are you. You're just influencing one

5:09

of them or you can influence all of

5:11

them. You just want one of them to do their

5:13

thing. I was trying to set you up

5:14

to explain the game. I wasn't trying to catch you out. I promise.

5:17

I promise. I guess

5:19

that before we talk about this game in any capacity,

5:21

we should talk about there's this really crucial

5:23

distinction between players and characters

5:25

in this game. So if each character has

5:27

a little wooden piece on the board that can move

5:30

around and take actions on the space but

5:32

that character on the SpaceDeath can

5:34

be controlled by anyone. The

5:36

players are completely separate. And you

5:39

want, you know, quote unquote, your

5:41

character to succeed, but you also

5:43

might want you might use other characters

5:46

to accomplish those goals. Right? So

5:49

on your turn, you'll activate a character

5:51

but it doesn't need to be yours. Which one

5:53

is yours is secret, and you probably wanna keep

5:55

it that way. But ultimately, yeah, you do wanna

5:57

achieve your own character's goal by controlling them

5:59

more indirectly by getting other characters

6:01

or players to help them out. And

6:03

what about those goals be? Right? There's so many different

6:05

characters in this game. It be crazy to

6:08

try and talk about every single one of the individual

6:10

goals, but I'll give you some simple ones that might

6:12

make sense. So the station chief,

6:14

for example, just once as

6:17

many people to get off of the station as possible,

6:19

but remain on it herself and

6:21

go down with the ship. Then

6:23

the astro chimp for example,

6:26

is a character who just wants to reach Earth

6:28

with a briefcase and a gun. I

6:31

don't know why, but that's their goal.

6:33

And then a more complex goal might be something about the

6:35

digital assistant, which is character

6:37

that doesn't actually exist on

6:39

the board, but instead exists as data

6:41

that needs to be on the sort of handheld computer

6:44

device of players or of

6:46

other characters, sorry. And that digital assistant

6:48

just wants as many copies of themselves to reach

6:50

earth as possible or you could be

6:53

playing the telepathic

6:54

rat, which is a rat that needs

6:56

to cause as much chaos as possible. But

6:59

has the downside of being locked in a cage

7:01

that needs to be carried around by other players,

7:04

but obviously the rat's telepathic, so they

7:06

can get players that aren't wearing a helmet.

7:08

To carry them around and do stuff for

7:10

them. It's it's a bit bonkers. Yeah.

7:14

Yeah. It's very bonkers. And, you know,

7:16

in one of the first games we played of this,

7:18

a character just walked into a room,

7:21

picked up the telepathic rat, and then

7:23

started walking around, carrying this telepathic

7:25

rat around whilst doing strange things. And

7:27

it just had everyone else being like, well, are they is

7:30

their character the character

7:32

or the rat? You know, if I think of, like,

7:34

what are they doing with the Are they carrying the

7:36

rat somewhere to chalk it out the airlock maybe?

7:39

Mhmm. Or is the rat the one driving

7:42

the ship? It was

7:44

a very fundamentally overwhelming

7:47

experience trying to gather on this

7:49

because as as you say, like, there are lots

7:51

of different characters like twenty different characters

7:53

and we're all trying to work

7:55

out like not only what

7:57

we can do with the character

7:59

that we have and what we're trying to achieve and how we

8:02

might do that, but also looking at all of

8:04

these other things and trying to work out what the heck

8:06

could be going on. Yes. In terms of

8:08

why would somebody be throwing

8:10

a molotov cocktail into that room? Why

8:12

why would somebody be so insistent on

8:14

trying to drag the botanist

8:17

into an airlock. And

8:20

we generally weren't very good at working that

8:22

out straight away because of the fact that

8:24

there were so many moving parts.

8:27

It sort of builds itself as being simulation

8:29

and the the board has all of these spaces that represent

8:31

all of these different locations on this

8:33

space Stationfall the minutiae

8:36

of it is quite

8:36

intense. I mean, how many different rooms are there? There's

8:39

probably only rooms as people, if not more.

8:41

Yeah. There's tons and tons of different rooms, like

8:43

the motions of the game are just like hellishly

8:45

complicated. There's there's so many

8:47

interactions and different things you can

8:50

do that is like it's absurd. And we

8:52

should also say that this game comes with two

8:54

reference guides for the players.

8:56

So you can look up all the different actions

8:58

and interactions in the game and like

9:00

the the In our copy, those

9:02

reference guides are just we just got battered.

9:05

They were handled by the players. They were

9:07

passed around constantly. Because people were

9:09

looking up things because they didn't wanna tell other

9:11

players what they were trying to do because that

9:13

would might give away what character they are and all that kind

9:15

of stuff. Like, formulating a strategy for

9:17

your character was was so

9:19

tricky and complicated because we didn't even know

9:21

necessarily what was possible in the space.

9:24

Like, teaching that game is

9:27

is so hard because there's so many different things that you

9:29

can do that going through each of the individual actions

9:31

and how they work would just be like it would just be

9:33

a false errand, it would be ridiculous. And then at

9:35

the same time, right, you have all of this. So, I mean,

9:37

if we're getting into like the meat of the criticism

9:39

of this game, right, you have all of these different

9:42

things you can do on your turn, all these different

9:44

interactions. But ultimately, when you

9:46

activate a character, you have two

9:48

actions on your turn, right,

9:50

out of this big list. And that

9:53

it did feel like it proved

9:55

quite difficult to have turns that felt

9:57

substantial

9:58

in this game. Yes. I would

10:00

a hundred percent agree. Well, the first time we played it, we

10:03

played it with nine players, which is is that

10:05

the

10:05

maximum? I think

10:06

nine is the maximum. Missing. Yeah. Okay.

10:08

I was like, I wouldn't have

10:09

been surprised if I misremembered it, and it was the

10:11

minimum. But I

10:13

think

10:13

the minimum is like Yeah. -- three probably.

10:15

I think it might be three. Yeah. Sounds about

10:18

right. But effectively with nine players,

10:20

you can only do two actions. And an action is

10:22

as simple as, like, moving from one room to another.

10:24

And often getting around the ship, you know,

10:26

you're gonna have to move through some, like, secondary

10:29

or tertiary rooms to even get to another

10:31

room. So I think, well, that character's there. I need

10:33

to get that character to the other side of

10:35

the ship. So your whole goal

10:37

might be move person two spaces. And

10:39

then after eight players have done

10:42

other things, A bunch of things

10:44

might have happened. Yeah. It's possible that

10:46

a door might be locks in that route direction

10:49

you were going in. It's possible that the character

10:51

you moved has now been knocked out or incapacitated

10:54

for some reason that may or might may not

10:56

have anything to do with that character. It's

10:58

possible that the room you were gonna

11:00

go to to do something has been partially

11:02

destroyed. Or yeah,

11:05

there's just there are so many different

11:07

things that could

11:08

happen. It could even be that someone moved

11:10

your character after you moved it.

11:12

Like, someone could just be like, oh, I wanna use that

11:14

character now and they're gonna go right back the way they came

11:16

and it's like there's nothing you can do about that.

11:18

And you're right now like when you put it like that,

11:20

there are eight turns in between your

11:23

first and your second turn. There are eight human

11:25

beings between you and the next turn. Means

11:27

that like the strategy I would describe the strategy

11:29

in this game as like glacial. It

11:31

is it is so slow, but it's

11:34

but it's also a game

11:36

where you

11:38

find yourself unable to do things far more

11:40

and that you are able to do things.

11:43

That feels like quite, you know, derisive

11:45

and and blunt, but there's so many times

11:47

in this game where I wanted to do something,

11:50

but I couldn't or but

11:52

this thing was happening or but but but but but

11:54

it's a really common occurrence to be just

11:56

blocked off of the of your

11:58

plan because someone did something they didn't even,

12:01

like, know that they were messing with your

12:03

plan by doing. It's like -- Yeah. -- I'd like it to

12:05

it it's it's like in a worker placement game.

12:07

Where someone takes the spot that you

12:10

really really want because they didn't know what

12:12

else to do on their

12:12

turn, but you really needed it. Do you know what I mean?

12:15

Yeah. I mean, I'd say this

12:17

it felt in our place of this, which

12:19

is not necessarily representative of how the

12:21

game might be played by people who love this game.

12:24

Right. It's not yet fully out, but lots of

12:26

people played it lot on tabletop

12:28

simulated. A lot of people really, really

12:30

got into it. And I feel like if everyone was really

12:32

into it, then the game would play quite differently.

12:34

Right. But I digress digress. I'd say

12:36

that this actually felt a little bit more like

12:39

you'd walked to a room where somebody had been

12:41

building a rub goldberg machine and

12:43

you'd just been like, oh, Domino's

12:45

or something, you know, and you just you just

12:47

knocked something over and ruined like days and

12:49

days of work. Mhmm. Because

12:51

it did feel at the start of the game, you go, okay.

12:53

Well, I have these very broad objectives. Like, you know,

12:55

I need all of the humans to be dead

12:58

or something. You know, like, that's Where

13:01

to start? You know what I mean? Oh,

13:03

board games are supposed to be an escape

13:06

from everyday life. What the heck? But

13:09

you have to work out a plan and so you think,

13:11

okay, well, I'll do this and you'll start doing something.

13:13

And it might actually end up being that when it comes around

13:15

to your next turn, you're presented with a different opportunity

13:18

that more viable. But it does

13:20

mean that especially that first turn in the game

13:22

just feels kind of pointless because it's like,

13:24

well, you know, we're gonna I'm

13:26

gonna do this, but then Buzztime

13:28

gets around to you again. And as is the case

13:31

in in any game that you play with more than three

13:33

players, think. When it gets run to you again, the

13:35

game state has changed so much that really

13:37

it's impossible to have any continuity of

13:39

plan beyond one turn to the

13:41

next because unless you are incredibly

13:43

lucky. But probably, you

13:45

know, like, you'll be like, well, I'll

13:47

just walk over and put the cat on and I'll make

13:49

a cup of tea. This is not in the game. This

13:51

is just an example. And by the time, it's you'll turn again next.

13:53

There's like a hell demon has spawned and the entire

13:55

ship has been tall in two. It's it's the escalation.

13:58

Was sort of ridiculous. So it felt like as a

14:00

whole, the narrative and the

14:02

game escalated quite rapidly. But in

14:04

terms of how it felt to play, as

14:07

you put it. It felt quite glacial.

14:09

Yeah. And and I will say that we

14:11

played it, the first time we played it, we've had

14:13

it twice. And the first time we played it, I

14:15

don't think we played it with the full nine. We played

14:17

it with a a large group, but not the

14:19

full cohort. And the second time we played

14:21

it, we played it with the team variant. Which

14:23

I do think does a lot to help

14:26

that problem of you have a

14:28

lot more because you have another person down the table

14:30

who is on your team and their turn is taking

14:32

place quite a while away from

14:34

yours, you do have more to

14:36

do. You have more to discuss, more plans

14:38

to make, and you sort of start to bond with

14:40

other teams around the table when you realize that

14:42

your goals are like slightly aligning and you're kind

14:44

of making deals and doing little bit

14:46

more sort

14:47

of, I don't know, little bit more --

14:49

Yes. -- a little bit more, full stop.

14:51

Yes. And I think that's interesting, right, because

14:54

this was described to us as being

14:56

like a social deduction party

14:58

game for hardcore gamers.

15:01

Right? That was sort of the way the pitch that was given

15:03

to me. And it might not have been by the company. I can't

15:05

remember who said it to me. It was a conventional. I was very tired.

15:07

So that might have been official. But I

15:10

I kind of got that, but I I feel like

15:13

maybe we would perhaps

15:15

to social deductity with it. And

15:17

we were like, well, we can't get anything done. And maybe

15:19

we should have reacted by being, like, well, if we can't get

15:21

in the gun to own, we have to make alliances with

15:23

other players. We just work out who's got similar

15:26

and, you know, if we had done that,

15:28

then perhaps it might have

15:30

played or felt differently. But I feel

15:32

like because there were so many minutia

15:34

and so many rules and so many systems we

15:37

were all too busy just trying to

15:39

grapple with how on earth we

15:41

might achieve our goals to

15:44

even consider having

15:47

serendipitous conversations with each other

15:49

about, like, oh, who are you? What are you trying to do?

15:51

And and having any, like, deception or anything

15:53

like that? It was everyone just being, like, I'll

15:55

do my thing and then everyone goes, what are you doing,

15:57

man? You're like, I'm just doing things. It's

15:59

fine. Don't worry about it before, you know,

16:02

you press a button that self destructs the

16:04

ship or something. Everyone's like, are you talking not

16:06

to worry? And they're like, yeah. I I did

16:08

tell you that. I'm sorry. It

16:10

was very funny, and I do agree

16:13

that the team variants did

16:15

take off a lot of the rough edges. Just having

16:17

that thing of like, okay, we'll effectively got double

16:20

actions, you know. We just get four actions

16:22

each turn. And even with little

16:24

gaps between, it felt like you could actually achieve

16:26

things and have momentum with plans.

16:28

In a way that was meaningful. But

16:31

we still did find that actually as

16:33

it went on, you know, you

16:35

still got to a point in the game where where really

16:37

you had nothing you could do. There were some points towards the

16:39

end where everyone was like, well, just skip our turn

16:41

because it's impossible for us

16:43

to do our objectives now. Yes. And,

16:46

like, all you could do at that point would be to,

16:48

like, cause chaos. And I think that that's the

16:50

thing that I found interesting

16:53

about it. Right? Is is the fun thing

16:55

about it was the chaos. Was

16:57

the, like, the wheels coming

16:59

off and what's happening. This is really fun. This is really

17:01

silly. But at the same time that that

17:04

myzilliness with the actions of only

17:06

having two actions you can do each turn

17:08

meant that you

17:11

knew as a player how hard you had to

17:13

crunch to try and actually do something meaningful

17:15

with those -- Mhmm. -- and how heartbreaking it was

17:17

when somebody did something unthinkingly

17:20

that made your plan completely irrelevant. And

17:22

I think when you got to that point in the

17:24

late game where actually the fun

17:27

should have been, I would say, in a narrative

17:29

game. Well, now I'm just gonna

17:31

chuck molotov cocktails all over the place and just cause

17:33

chaos and do whatever I wanna do. Because I'm like,

17:35

I'm out of the game now anyway, so whatever. I

17:38

kinda didn't want to do that because I

17:40

felt like it would be just really

17:42

aggravating and stressful for other players because

17:44

they've already put so much mental work. He's trying

17:47

to work out like, I'm not

17:49

trying to even work out, and this is the problem. Right?

17:51

Not trying to work out the optimal move, but just

17:53

trying to work out anything to do.

17:56

And I feel like that is why the

17:59

action choice was only, you know, only

18:01

two actions. I I get the sense that this game probably

18:03

was tested with three or maybe more

18:05

at some point. But because the

18:07

decision space at the start of the game, when you

18:09

have twenty different characters, all these different rooms,

18:11

all these different locations, all these different potential

18:14

things, especially we haven't even mentioned that

18:16

actually when you play, you get given two characters

18:18

and you get to choose one that you're gonna play as and

18:20

another one that's kind of gonna be

18:23

either your ally character

18:26

or enemy character that you can get extra

18:28

points for either killing or helping.

18:30

And at any point in the game, if you decide

18:32

that your main character is longer ago,

18:34

you can just be like, actually, I'm gonna flip. And you lose

18:37

a couple of points, but, you know, it means that basically,

18:39

you can just change your mind and be like, I'm not the evil

18:41

android. I'm the help full doctor, you know, and you

18:43

can actually pivot. So

18:46

I feel like at the start of the game,

18:48

you just think, well, what on earth can I do

18:50

with two actions? And it limits

18:52

what you can do to point that you don't

18:54

get caught in a horrible weather of analysis

18:57

paralysis. But then the problem is, especially

18:59

when things aren't going well and you're not be

19:01

able to achieve anything. You do find yourself

19:04

just staring at the board, staring at all these opportunities

19:06

being like there must be something

19:08

I can do. Do you feel like it would be something

19:11

that might be enjoyed by more people who were like

19:13

really everyone playing it was doing three d chess

19:15

because I feel like that's the only way it

19:18

would

19:18

work. Quite possibly. III

19:20

keep going back to that thing because I also heard

19:22

the sort of the the the epithet for a party

19:24

game for heavy gamers. You know, I heard that

19:27

being bandied around in regards to Stationfall

19:29

And I do think I wish it was more party

19:31

game than heavy game, basically every

19:33

turn. I wish that, like, the characters

19:36

had their own, like, special power that

19:38

they had and that was where the complexity came from

19:40

where it's like, I can do this and it's nonsense. Rather

19:42

than instead having this, like, quite rigid

19:45

system that, like, everyone kind

19:47

of can do like roughly the same things in,

19:49

but it means that you actually quite a limited space.

19:51

I wish it was more silly, more

19:53

party, more ridiculous, more narrative,

19:55

and shorter because it took us so

19:58

long to play. Like

20:00

four hours maybe? Maybe longer. Maybe

20:02

even longer than that. It was it was it was

20:04

a real, like, timetable person

20:07

hogs of a game. And

20:09

it is funny a lot. It did, you know, it it did

20:11

conjure up a couple of stories. Right? And the stories

20:14

are quite nice, but the stories were very traditional

20:16

Cifi, you know, mostly. There were

20:18

moments which were

20:19

hilarious, but often it was, you know, okay,

20:21

this happens and this happens and then this happens

20:23

and, whoa, everything's gone crazy. That's the thing is that,

20:25

like, there's think that when this game

20:28

shows that, like, that thematic sort

20:30

of, like, lusciousness that can come

20:32

out at times. Right? Where, like, you know,

20:34

some of the characters, like, like, for example, there's

20:36

a billionaire onboard. And every whenever

20:39

the billionaire is in a room, all the cameras

20:41

are on in that room. Regardless of,

20:43

like, whatever whatever is going on. So

20:46

they're it always got cameras following them. And their goal

20:48

is to, like, find their dog and get it on off

20:50

the ship, and they also have like loads of bribes that

20:52

they can pay to people to get them to do their

20:54

bidding. Like, delightful. There's like

20:56

a botanist with a giant man eating plant. I think

20:58

it's like both the millionaire and the millionaire's

21:00

dog are live streaming. Yeah. But

21:02

at any time, they have the the the implication

21:04

is that the dog has its own, like, live

21:07

streaming via this channel. Which

21:09

is it's lovely. That like, we had

21:11

a lot of fun enjoying the theme

21:13

and thinking about it. It's

21:16

just doesn't quite

21:18

land. was a fascinating thing to have played.

21:20

And I think if you do want

21:22

to check it out, I'd really recommend

21:25

playing in Teams, having that, like -- Yeah. --

21:27

hope and spirita, having someone that you could,

21:29

like, devise plans with and

21:31

sometimes just, you know, somebody said to you, we should do this

21:33

and be like, okay. Cool. And it'd be like, you know, how

21:35

can we focus on both of our characters

21:37

goals

21:39

was a lot more satisfying

21:41

in amid the game move a lot more quickly,

21:43

especially

21:44

at that player count as well, especially that

21:46

player count. Especially that play game.

21:48

But we still found towards the end, it

21:50

just became a little bit a case of,

21:53

well, I'm gonna move this character to SpaceDeath.

21:55

Well, I'm gonna move this character two spaces.

21:57

Well, you know, people trying to leave

22:00

a room and then can't leave the room or hit even

22:02

the head with the spanner. It's like, okay. Well, I'll bring the

22:04

medical button and It it felt

22:06

like once the

22:08

magic and mystery had been stripped out

22:10

of the back of the machine, it felt like a war of

22:12

attrition -- Yeah. -- a degree. Yeah. Of,

22:15

like, people trying to achieve very basic

22:17

things and you kind of felt like

22:19

we're playing snakes and ladders, you know, at some

22:21

points towards the end of just

22:23

being, like, Am I gonna get off?

22:25

No. You've hit my snake, and so now I'm

22:27

gonna give you an e lock. And you know,

22:29

there's there's also like there's a thing that I feel

22:31

like some people who really love this game might come into

22:33

the comments on this podcast and be like, well, you

22:35

shouldn't have played it at this player count for your

22:37

first game. Right? And I can see that, right, that,

22:39

like, going straight in to play it at nine

22:41

when we don't quite understand the systems or playing

22:44

it at like I think it was like seven or something when we played

22:46

it the first time. Playing it with that many people first

22:48

time round just seems like crazy. But

22:50

then I also do think there is an aspect

22:52

of like, you know, it's advertised that it goes up to nine.

22:54

Everyone was bigging up how it's a great game for like

22:56

lots of big players, how it was a party game for heavy

22:58

gamers. And I think that, like, if it doesn't function

23:01

at that player count, you know, or it doesn't

23:03

hang together, I I think regardless of

23:05

how experience we were with the game, we'd still have

23:07

exactly the problems we were thinking of. With this

23:09

really, like, slow strategy and

23:11

this complete, like, randomness spanner in the

23:13

works happening in between your turns. It

23:15

just doesn't feel like it's a hundred percent really

23:17

sitting on either end of spectrum in a way that's satisfying.

23:20

No. A hundred percent. And I don't yeah.

23:22

I feel like, you know, to to

23:24

try and play something like that within an an experience

23:26

group, with mind players for the first time would be

23:29

absolutely misguided.

23:31

But we were playing with, you know,

23:34

a group of people who were all very good

23:36

at learning and understanding games. Like,

23:38

you know, so I didn't

23:40

really feel like the player count was

23:42

the issue. Yeah. And that was

23:45

we found that because effectively in the team game, we

23:47

were effectively playing like four player game maybe.

23:49

Right. Right. Really, like, you know, like,

23:51

we we were There was more to it than that, but but

23:53

we kinda were. And

23:55

yeah, I I didn't see any of the issues we had shaking

23:57

out differently with with fewer people. think with with

23:59

many practices, you could be faster and getting

24:01

through it, but it's interesting

24:03

like I've seen a few games like this and whenever games

24:06

try to simulate these big systems like this,

24:08

I always find that they end up having

24:10

to simplify things and

24:12

focus on certain aspects of things.

24:15

And also despite that, despite,

24:17

like, pairing things down and trimming

24:20

things away, losing a lot

24:22

of the joy of them. And I think actually as a simulation,

24:24

I thought that it was interesting that, you know, they had

24:26

a lot of the the joy and the fun and the

24:28

characters being kind of silly and wacky.

24:31

But effectively, you know, you cannot

24:33

do the station third seen thing.

24:35

That level of minutiae,

24:36

like, that's

24:37

same way with the other janitor. It's like, find

24:39

the bucket, find the mop, fill up

24:41

the bucket with water and then add some of the

24:43

soap to the water. And then it's like, you know, it

24:45

was so annoyingly

24:48

detailed. But in a way that actually, I think the

24:50

joy of simulations is the modernity. Right.

24:53

It's it's the the details

24:55

in between where you're just doing something boring.

24:57

And, you know, I salute what it's trying to do.

24:59

And a lot of people seem to really, really love it.

25:02

I just think if you do get instead

25:04

into have a game of it, just be aware that it will

25:07

take about four or five

25:08

hours. And you might not enjoy

25:10

it as much as the other people who are playing it,

25:12

so be warned.

25:17

Next up on this traversity of a rondle

25:20

we call life and reality. We've got

25:22

deal with the devil. That's right.

25:24

Me and Tom talking about another

25:26

board game. Now, this is a game

25:28

from Check Games Edition and

25:30

it's designed by Mathush Katri.

25:32

Now, this caught our eye earlier in the

25:34

year when we were doing some previews for

25:37

Shucks and having a quick look inside some boxes

25:39

and talking about what was inside of the box. This

25:42

fascinated us because basically the premise

25:45

was and really, you

25:47

know, trick games additions. There

25:49

aren't many companies out there that do

25:51

things like this and just

25:53

surprise you with the audacity of saying, hey,

25:55

look, what if a euro

25:58

game but with a

26:00

hidden character mechanic

26:03

where somebody is actually the devil. It's a euro game

26:06

but somebody's actually the devil --

26:08

Mhmm. -- and and okay.

26:10

Right? Well, that is already audacious. What if I

26:12

was next to tell you after this

26:14

falling on swiftly, not giving you a chance to breathe

26:16

and say, hey, and you know what else? It's

26:19

a four player game. Not a game

26:21

that plays up to four players. You can

26:23

only play this game with four people.

26:25

And I have so

26:27

much time for the fact that the box

26:29

simply says, on the side, fourteen

26:31

plus hundred and twenty minutes for

26:34

exactly. It doesn't say four players.

26:37

It's like this plays exactly

26:39

four people. If you don't have exactly four people,

26:41

You cannot play this game. Yes. And

26:44

in what we were just saying about how, like, you know, games

26:46

often be like, hey, you can play with 95I

26:48

think, is the most criminal number. And it doesn't

26:50

surprise me that expansions often put five

26:53

in later because I feel like games often

26:55

will be like, yeah, you could play with five. If

26:57

you wanna have a bad time because,

27:01

generally, it's a sweet spot. Four,

27:04

three. That's the sweet spot.

27:07

Thank you for listening. So we have this

27:09

diamond d shaped board in the

27:11

middle of the table and a

27:13

rondle of resources that's

27:15

gonna twist around the center. And throughout the game,

27:17

we're gonna be getting different types

27:20

of resources that we're gonna be spending to

27:22

basically make buildings and make stuff

27:25

in our town or do little upgrades

27:27

and all that good euro y stuff.

27:29

And it's a medieval setting

27:32

Yeah. With it, there's monks and staff

27:34

and piety and the church.

27:36

And also, you guessed it, literally

27:38

the devil. Behind each

27:41

player's corner of the board. You've

27:43

got these massive structures that

27:45

you put together out of cardboard, which are these big

27:48

buildings that allow you to have double

27:51

layered

27:52

sort of secrecy thing. What they call

27:54

those little Heidi things, the cardboard Heidi

27:56

things,

27:57

like a player screen, but it's got

27:59

two flaws. Yeah. So it's like a player

28:01

rampart. A player rampart. I love

28:03

it. So yeah, you gotta play a screen with like

28:05

a shelf in it. Yeah. And also,

28:07

the the construction of it is almost like

28:10

the second layer is coming in at a higher

28:12

angle. So it's almost like a Geneva a

28:14

turtle shell. It's really

28:15

designed for like, you ain't looking

28:18

behind this. Okay? And that's important obviously

28:20

because somebody is the devil. A

28:22

lot of the game is about having these resources

28:25

behind your rampart. Each

28:28

player has a chest

28:30

kind of thing. And it's not a chest. It's a it's a

28:33

triple layer of cardboard effectively. So

28:35

it's like a a false cavity within

28:37

two thick bits of cardboard that you can slide the

28:39

top off and then you can fill it with little

28:41

chips and bits of cardboard and then slide it closed

28:43

again and it will stay nice and close

28:45

sturdy. But also, People

28:48

won't know what's inside of them and all of these look

28:50

identical. You've got four of them and they're just four

28:52

different chests. And cleverly, there's

28:54

a little app on the game that basically means you

28:57

scan these and then the

28:59

game knows who has which

29:01

chest and it will tell you

29:03

upon doing deals who to give

29:05

the chest out to? All of

29:07

these chest get chocked full of things

29:09

and you doing deals with people being like

29:11

you have a little thing on the inside being like, I'll twist

29:13

that means, I would like

29:16

this resource and here, what

29:18

you put into it from behind your little

29:20

ramparts of secrets you put resources

29:22

in being like, look, I want this and the exchange

29:24

I will give you this. They

29:27

all go into the middle and then

29:29

the app tells you who to hand them out to,

29:31

and then everyone gets them, everyone looks at

29:34

what they've been offered. And you can choose

29:36

to take the deal, in which case do you literally

29:38

just, you know, put the resources inside

29:40

and you take out the money or whatever, or

29:43

what you choose to deny the deal and you just

29:45

chuck it back in the middle. And at the end of each round,

29:47

you're gonna do this twice. Means that everybody

29:50

makes an offer of a deal that's going

29:52

out to the table and then

29:55

two other people will look at that deal and

29:57

potentially one of them will

29:59

take it. Now the crucial thing here, of course,

30:02

is that the devil is making different

30:04

kinds of deals to people.

30:07

The devil wants to buy your soul.

30:10

And at the start of the game, if you are a

30:12

human, not really

30:14

gonna have any money, but you will have a

30:16

soul. You'll have an entire three

30:19

bits of soul, three little segments.

30:22

Of it's like the chocolate orange of humanity.

30:25

And those segments

30:27

are very valuable to

30:30

devils. Now one player

30:33

is a cultist, which means that technically there's not a

30:35

human, but they start with a little

30:38

bit less soul than usual and

30:40

a little bit more money as is the way.

30:42

Poor mister the devil. No

30:45

no souls at all. But loads of

30:47

money. Honestly, Just

30:49

scans of cash. Very very a

30:52

very rich. I'm gonna say man

30:54

but no devil. So

30:56

effectively, you have this situation whereby

30:59

you're playing this traditional euro, really,

31:02

where you have resources, you spend resources to do

31:04

things, and then you have money, money's

31:06

great. You can spend money to get more resources.

31:08

You can spend money to do things. At the

31:10

start of the game, no one has any money. So

31:14

as the devil, what are you gonna do? You've

31:16

got all this money, you could just start playing the

31:18

Euro game very well. Right? You could

31:20

just be playing better levels because you've started the game

31:22

with more

31:22

resources. But doing so might make it

31:25

a bit obvious that you are literally the devil.

31:27

The early game definitely definitely has

31:29

the the kind of tone of like my

31:31

grandparents will sometimes walk past someone's

31:34

house and just spend a weird amount of time

31:36

like looking at it and just kind

31:38

of like being nosy. It

31:40

has that kind of like, you know, sort

31:43

of curtain twitching, sort of, like, you

31:45

know, looking at what everyone else is doing around

31:47

the table, trying to sort of appraise your situation

31:50

in relation to theirs. Although

31:53

I do think that So we should actually

31:55

preface this by also saying that I don't think

31:58

working out who the devil is

32:00

is necessarily as important as

32:02

the sort of like the game of having enough

32:05

soul

32:05

is. No. Because no.

32:07

I mean, this is this is what I really enjoyed about

32:09

this game. Right? What I enjoyed about this game

32:11

was it was It was not what I expected.

32:14

Okay. When I saw it and thought, okay,

32:16

it's a slightly asymmetric Euro game where

32:18

one person's the devil and you don't know who it is and you keeping

32:20

it secret. Immediately you think, ah,

32:23

right. It must be like social reduction, a

32:25

trail. No. Yeah. Actually,

32:27

it's it's a piece of satire, really. It's

32:30

a piece of satire about the

32:32

church and about, like, the realities

32:35

of clarity in the

32:37

fact that actually we started to realize early

32:39

on it doesn't really matter

32:41

if you're the

32:42

devil. Right? Even

32:43

if even if you are the devil and people

32:46

work it out. Like, if people work it out early on,

32:48

and they're able to pin you and be like, look,

32:50

this person is definitely devil and get it right. Then

32:52

yes. Alright? Having the mask

32:54

off is not great.

32:57

It does slow you down a bit, but it's not

32:59

like you're out of the game. Right? It's not

33:01

that much of a game changer. The problem

33:04

is not having enough

33:06

soul. And

33:09

and the thing about it is funny is

33:11

actually The inquisition

33:14

play a large part in this game. And as the game goes

33:16

on, the inquisition kind of become more and more difficult

33:18

and they ramp up. And there different ways that

33:20

players and can change it so that the

33:22

inquisition is more powerful or the inquisition is

33:24

less powerful. But having the inquisition

33:27

being very powerful might actually be great for

33:29

the devil because when the inquisition turn up, they're

33:31

not actually looking for the devil. They just

33:33

want to see how much soul you have. Right.

33:35

And if you don't have

33:38

enough soul, then you're

33:40

in trouble. However, as

33:43

it gets on, it's like I think there was a point towards the end

33:45

of the game and I made this remember this, but I'm sure there was

33:47

a point where the acquisition was so harsh that didn't

33:49

matter even if you had a full soul.

33:51

That still wasn't enough. Yeah.

33:53

You still were being punished by the church.

33:56

At that point in the

33:57

game, the only way we could have really weathered

33:59

the inquisition storm even had a full

34:01

soul was I think like bribing them

34:03

as well. Yeah. Or having

34:05

a slightly high reputation as well.

34:07

There's a whole reputation system in the game

34:09

where if you gain reputation, the sort

34:11

of inquisition will look the other way. But

34:14

then they forget about that every

34:16

single round of the game. Like, you can do loads

34:18

of really good deeds for the Turkish to get a glowing

34:21

glowing reputation. But every single

34:23

round, they'll kind of forget that you did all that. Yeah.

34:25

Unless you've got some more money, in which case,

34:27

they'll be like, oh, no. Yeah. You you

34:29

are legit. You are it. So I

34:31

found it very funny, the fact that it's like, okay.

34:33

One of these is the devil. The inquisition's gonna come to town.

34:36

You sort of think, okay. The inquisition come and they're gonna find

34:38

that the devil They don't care. They're not looking for that.

34:40

They are literally just they want everyone

34:42

to be either paying them or to be pious.

34:45

And Yeah.

34:47

Like, trying to math out that balance of

34:49

being like, well, I'll sell a bit of my soul

34:51

to get some money, to then worry up this

34:54

engine to then be getting the resources

34:56

to be able to actually, like, do well

34:58

and make money and be able to pay the church and make

35:00

these donations. Versus

35:03

being good and keeping all of your soul and

35:05

not selling it to the devil, but then the inquisition turn

35:07

up and you're too poor to pay them off and so you

35:09

get penders being

35:11

heretic and you're in an awful lot of trouble.

35:13

It was inherently very funny

35:16

and very sharp. You know, it was kind

35:18

of on the nose in as piece of satire.

35:20

But actually, it's quite fun to have a board game

35:22

that is just shamelessly being

35:24

quite controversial and having fun with I

35:26

think why

35:27

not? The the core of that yeah. Like, that's that

35:29

sort of like a theoretical core of it is like

35:31

so unbelievably strong and you realize

35:34

more and more about why it's clever and what

35:36

it's doing, the more that you play it.

35:38

It's like it's very much one thing on the surface,

35:40

but then the more time you spend with

35:41

it, the more you realize that it's really

35:44

about like corruption and and kind

35:46

of about capitalism in the same breath.

35:49

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I think

35:51

as well, like, it's it's interesting how they are

35:53

the cards, there are cards you have where

35:55

you are either going to do the good thing or the evil

35:57

thing. Right? So it's like each round, you

36:00

get given a card, and then there's different outcomes

36:02

that happen. Depending on whether you want to take

36:04

the good choice or the evil choice. And there's a lot of fun

36:06

stuff there as well in terms of like what the

36:08

what the good thing is versus the evil

36:10

thing. Like often the thing that's like the good

36:13

thing to do, it's quite bad. You

36:15

know, it's like it's it's very much like, you know,

36:17

oh, there's there's outsiders trying to come

36:19

to town and it's like the good thing to do obviously.

36:21

Stop them. It's, you know,

36:23

it's it's very, like, traditional,

36:27

like, conservative, medieval values in

36:29

a way which is really quite interesting.

36:32

I feel like the the

36:34

we had a lot of fun unfolding what it was,

36:37

but I feel like by the time we did unfold

36:39

what it was. You realize that actually

36:41

underneath the surface after you've

36:44

enjoyed what it's doing. As

36:46

a piece of media, the

36:49

actual core

36:51

of the game is a

36:54

lot less revolutionary and a lot less

36:56

strange than we expected. Really, it

36:58

is just a slightly I think I best

37:00

describe it as a slightly asymmetric Euro

37:03

game.

37:03

Yeah. Yes. That's that's that's

37:05

basically hitting the nail on the head in the sense

37:07

that, like, the actual sort of Euro game,

37:10

I think that my ultimate conclusion would deal with the devil

37:12

right is that, like, I'm really glad that we played

37:14

it. I'm glad that it has so much like

37:16

wind in its sails in terms of it being this

37:18

sort of like slightly

37:20

bonkers and very quite like very

37:22

funny, very CGE game, but I think

37:24

I just find that actual core Euro

37:26

game that's in the center of it. Not

37:29

dramatically interesting. And

37:33

I think I'd fundamentally rather play something

37:35

that's a more

37:36

straightforward. But also and this is the really

37:38

important thing. We did have

37:41

I think something went slightly wrong with

37:43

our game. And it may have been the app or

37:45

it may have been the humans, but there were a couple

37:47

of times in the game whereby during

37:49

the point where you get handed chest

37:52

to take a look at the deal. To be like, do you wanna

37:54

take this deal? I got I

37:56

got my own box back a couple of times.

37:59

And I don't think that's supposed to happen.

38:01

I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure, maybe

38:03

that is supposed to happen as part of the

38:05

keeping it all slightly mysterious vibes,

38:07

but I I kind of my gut says

38:09

that that shouldn't happen. So

38:11

I don't know if it was like a glitch in the app or we mess

38:14

something up very slightly. And I kind of

38:16

I I wanted to talk about this podcast

38:18

now because we hope to play this game again

38:21

before we talked about in the podcast. But

38:23

because it requires specifically four

38:26

people -- Mhmm. -- it takes quite a long time to play.

38:28

We haven't had the chance to play again, and we

38:30

just felt like at this point, it would be best

38:32

to just talk about it, but I do wanna caveat that

38:35

slightly because I think that we really enjoyed

38:37

the theming. We really enjoyed a bit trying to do.

38:39

We felt a little flat on it as a kind

38:41

of trade euro y game. Yeah. But

38:44

I I don't think that what I've just

38:47

said like undermines those

38:49

opinions, I just think it definitely takes some of

38:51

the sharpness out of them because I yeah. I get the sense

38:53

that perhaps it would have been slightly

38:55

better

38:57

if that was a mistake and

38:59

something was not supposed to be happening happened.

39:02

Does that make sense? It makes sense.

39:04

It makes sense. Oh, thank goodness.

39:07

I feel like we've fully informed

39:09

the the the listener of our caveats

39:12

and stipulations Arie deal with the devil. Feel

39:14

like we've accomplished our goal. Right?

39:16

Yes, I think we have. So if you'll just sign

39:18

here at the bottom of this podcast, no.

39:22

You've just signed a deal with Pringles.

39:25

The potato chip in a

39:27

can. No. That's shaped weirdly.

39:29

And when's my first shipment arriving? This

39:31

week's podcast is sponsored by the

39:34

devil.

39:40

Thank you very much for listening to this

39:43

week's episode of the Shut up

39:45

and Sit Down podcast. We talked about

39:47

some games. We had some

39:49

thrills and spills and chills. We'll

39:52

be about next week with another podcast. I

39:54

think next week's podcast will be

39:56

a CCG special where we're gonna

39:58

be talking about flesh and

40:00

blood and sulfuric fusion. So

40:02

you can catch that in the pod feed next week if you're interested

40:05

in your CCGs. Over on the

40:07

YouTube channel, I've should have by the

40:09

time this podcast comes out a review

40:11

of classic family weight game rummy

40:14

club. Where I have a slight breakdown

40:16

for a few minutes at the start. We'll

40:18

see how that traffic's probably badly.

40:22

Is that it? Is that everything? Is that all we've

40:24

done, Matt? Is that everything is

40:27

that all that we've done? Oh, wait.

40:29

Hold on. No. You know what else I can

40:31

plug Matt? This is sorry. This has become a very

40:33

unofficial podcast. Oh, sorry.

40:35

Very official, I should say, podcast outflow,

40:37

isn't it really? It's become a, you know,

40:39

we don't normally do these, but but

40:41

by the time this podcast comes out as

40:43

well, if you're listening to this before nine

40:46

PM GMT on the twenty seventh

40:48

of January twenty twenty three. While

40:50

I am listening to this before nine

40:52

PM GMT on the twenty

40:54

seven of January because I'm recording this with

40:56

you now

40:57

live. Well, that's amazing because Matt, you can

40:59

come along to a a real video live

41:01

stream on twitch dot TV.

41:03

No. I think slash shut and sit down

41:05

where I'm gonna be playing some of

41:07

that Marvel card

41:08

game. Not Marvel Snap, the other one

41:10

by the Foraxes people. And if

41:12

you're too late

41:13

-- You are lying. -- if you're too late to watch that, I'm

41:15

not lying. Don't worry. You are lying to

41:17

true. Imagine I mean, it's a little vague dream

41:19

for whatever reason. That's gonna look quite

41:21

bad, isn't it really? Yeah. So then

41:23

I would be lying. But I don't think I will be. And

41:26

in that case, there'll be a a

41:28

vaud, there'll be whatever, it'll

41:30

be there. You can watch it

41:31

online. That's all the plugs for this week.

41:33

Shut up and plug it somewhere else. No. That

41:35

sounds fantastic. I might watch that

41:37

because I wanna know what's the deal with

41:39

that

41:39

game. Vis à vis

41:41

Tom Brewster's brain. I'm gonna be

41:44

quite confident. I think I'm gonna be quite upset

41:46

by the fact that I just, like, clicked random on my car

41:48

to a few times end up with the most generic

41:51

male human that I've ever seen in my

41:53

life and that's gonna be what represents me

41:55

in the in the grandchild.

41:56

Marvel Marvel midnight suns online.

41:58

I mean, I feel like that in itself is

42:00

a piece of biting common tree

42:02

about normal as a

42:05

as a as a media entity.

42:07

So quite possibly quite possibly.

42:09

Thanks much for listening everyone. We'll see you

42:12

next week. Bye. See you next

42:14

time. Bye.