Tom:Happy new year folks! The team has had a little rest, played some little games, and are generally emerging from hibernation ready to make content… and a few changes. You may have noticed the title of this post is a little different than usual, because we’re going to try swapping out our weekly ‘This Week On’ posts for ‘This Month On’ posts in the first half of 2023.
So, why the change? Mostly this comes from me sitting down to write the weekly posts and realising that the format was increasingly becoming either ‘we are posting a video and a podcast’ or ‘we are not posting a video but there will be a podcast’ for most weeks in 2022. This wasn’t terrible, of course – but it was a weird little job that didn’t feel all that useful! Now we want these posts to be more substantial, and to give folks who are interested more of a peek behind the curtain as to what we’re getting up to, as well as affording us a little more flexibility in how we approach things. Video reviews can get changed, pushed back, shuffled around and entirely canned for all manner of reasons, and we want to reflect that reality in our scheduling updates.
However! We still want to be updating the community and sharing the ins and outs of being living human beings working on things – so, to that end, we’re going to loosely start the Twitch Channel up again for some much needed chill and chat time. We’ll probably keep these very casual to begin with, and be guided by you lot on what you want to see next! The first of these will likely be next week where I’ll be playing a splash of the new Firaxis game: Marvel’s Midnight Suns, and I’ll be open for questions and rambling about SU&SD in 2023! We’ll post a date for that over on the SU&SD Twitter account once I’ve got things in order.
So! With that change out the way, what’s going on in January?
First up, you can expect a really lovely raft of podcasts. We just released our 2023 predictions episode last week, and we’ll follow that up this week with a chat about the first few games we played this year – The Wolves, The Search for Lost Species, and Ginkgopolis! After that, we’ve got a few more episodes lined up in the hopper – a CCG Special talking about Flesh & Blood and Solforge: Fusion, as well as a lengthy chat about Stationfall and some of the games we’d played after PAXU. Good times!
Over in videoville, a couple things are in the cooker. We’ll soon have a video on classic family game Rummikub, in which I have a complete critical breakdown. Why am I making it? I don’t really know. On top of that, myself and Quinns are sketching out the borders of a ‘Top 10 Small Games’ feature, but that might end up being a February project – such is the way when we’re trying to feature a whole bunch of games at once. There’s a few other scripts that are in the ‘maybe’ pile for turning into full-fat videofilms – but I think our January and February will likely be a little quieter on the video side of things whilst Matt continues to assemble the video studio for new features, and I navigate the absolute state that is Brighton’s rental market.
Thanks all! See you next week for a stream, and next month for another this month on Shut Up & Sit Down!
[oh, and I know this is a little late for ‘This January in Shut Up & Sit Down! We’ll hopefully have these updates much earlier – so we sandwich the month with a ‘This Month On…’ and a Newsletter!]
I haven’t queried manufacturers to find out the cost of the game at ~64 dice and 4 players, but I don’t expect it to be cheap. I know that keeping a laser focus on unit economics will be very important if we want to publish a profitable game.
Ways to Keep Costs Down
A rule of thumb is that board games retail for about 5x their landed cost. This is because games sell into distribution at about 18-20% msrp, which works out to a 50% unit margin. For reference Nut Hunt which we are now selling for $39 (we recently reduced the price from $49) had a landed cost of $9.68. The breakdown was:
Manufacture & Component Testing – $29,415 / 4,000 = $7.35 per game
Freight – $6,154 / 3,732 = $1.65 per game
Customs Inspection Fees – $2,529 / 3,732 = $0.68 per game
This was for a 4,000 unit print run with most of the units shipped Stateside. The $2,529 customs inspection fee was due to our container being pulled for inspection (which is a rare occurrence).
As you can see, we are breaking the 5x rule for Nut Hunt.
Our original MSRP was $49, but the $39 price point resonates more with consumers and is in line with peers (also a family weight gateway game although a bit higher complexity & component skew than its closest comps).
I’m a sucker for a good fishing themed board game. For some reason, fishing of the cardboard variety is far better than the real-life kind. Conservas is a solo bag building game from Scott Almes, a designer that I really enjoy. Even though I’m not a fan of solo gaming, Conservas has its hooks in me and keeps reeling me in.
The Daily Catch
In this game, you’ll run a fishing and canning operation off the coast of Spain. Each season starts with a single boat, some cash in hand, and a bag of tokens that is dictated for that season. Conservas takes you through 12 months of fishing using a spiral bound book. Each month will have a unique win condition, some have special rules, and two difficulty goals to reach.
In each round of the season, you’ll draw five tokens blindly from the bag for each boat you own and the Open Water card on the table. You’ll have to assign the five tokens before drawing five more, eventually filling each available card.
Each boat in the game has a catch requirement that has to be met. You can meet this requirement with fish tokens or the worthless water tokens that are clogging up the bag. All the other tokens are placed at the bottom of the card, showing that they are still in the “open water” and not on the boat.
To Can or Not to Can
As you pull the sea life on board, you have to make decisions on how to use these tokens. Each season has spots in the book that pay cash if you choose to can your fish. Money can be tight in this game and you’ll need cash to purchase new boats to expand your saltwater empire.
The canning requirements can sometimes be a single fish type, or multiples of a specific fish in order to get paid. In some seasons, you’ll earn more money as you can specific types of fish. In other seasons, you can saturate the market, earning less money if you keep canning the same type of catch.
Your fish tokens can also be spent on Upgrade cards which give your operation some nice perks. Conservas does a great job of giving players multiple avenues to solve the puzzle. Some Upgrade cards definitely feel more powerful than others. You’ll start to look for some of these after your first couple games.
Before the end of each round, you can purchase a new boat and wipe the Upgrade and Boat cards to get a fresh set of three on the table. During the night phase of the round, you’ll spend your cash to maintain your fleet of boats as you head into the next day. By the way, the punny boat names in the game are fantastic.
Conservation is Key
The fish you catch in Conservas is almost as important as the fish you leave in the sea. During the night phase of each round, any fish that were in the Open Water (this includes the fish under the boats that were not caught) will spawn new tokens. If you leave three mussels uncaught, you’ll spawn that number of mussels minus one. This is vital to making sure that you have fish in the bag as you move from round to round.
Conservas is all about making sure that you don’t overfish the sea and long term planning to meet the goals of that season. In my first two games, I bought a fleet of boats too early and sold every fish I could. I found myself grabbing water token after water token, unable to fulfill any orders and failing pretty quickly.
Since Conservas is a bag builder, a big part of the game is keeping a mental tally of what you believe is in the bag. Unless an Upgrade card gives you the chance, you cannot look into the bag to survey what’s available.
Trial and Error
While I love the artwork and I’m a fan of the designer, I was immediately repelled because it was a solo game. I’m an extravert that loves this hobby so much because of the social atmosphere that gaming brings. I gave Conservas a try and it’s been one of my favorite gaming experiences this year.
Each game of Conservas takes around twenty minutes and there are times when you know the mistakes you made in round four are going to sink your operation. The game plays quickly and I’ve gotten into the habit of playing back to back games because of it. Also, because I’m terrible at the game.
I only found success after five attempts at the first season of the game. Since then, I’ve crawled my way past three more seasons. The game is tough and sometimes I’m just barely clearing the standard difficulty. Each time I fail a season, I take a look at where I went wrong. Most of the time, it’s a mix of overfishing or not using the Upgrades that were available to me.
There’s an economy to Conservas that works really well. It’s a tight game that rarely leaves you confident that you’ll succeed until the last final round of a season. This is why coming back to the game and enjoying its twenty minute playtime is so enjoyable.
Final Thoughts
Conservas is a perfect storm of theme, art, and gameplay that has me excited every time I sit down with the game. I could never see myself playing solo games on a regular basis, but Conservas has shown me how enjoyable they can be. My time with A Gentle Rain, another amazing solo game, was all about relaxing and finding a moment of peace. Conservas is all about pressing my luck, practicing moderation, and finding a delicate balance to succeed.
If you had told me a couple months ago that a solo board game would be one of my biggest surprises of the year, I would have laughed in your face. But here I am. Sitting alone at my kitchen table, smelling like an old sea captain, playing a board game by myself, and loving every minute of it.
The historical power struggles occurring during the period covered by Baltic Empires (1558-1721) did not happen in a vacuum, but were of great importance to the interest to major powers on the edges of the map of Baltic Empires: England, France, the Netherlands, the Habsburg-controlled Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. Each of these powers were in their own way affected by affairs in the Baltic region, and in turn attempted to influence events there to their own advantage by various means. The scale of this ranged across the spectrum from minor trade deals to outright invasions and attempts at dictating foreign policy. The focus on this article is therefore on these foreign powers and how their interference and intervention in Baltic affairs are represented in the game.
The map of Baltic Empires has many areas that are uncontrolled by the playable powers at the start of the game. These are called Independents, and most can be conquered by the players. Along the edge of the map there are also some special areas that can never be entered or controlled by the players. These are the “Habsburg Lands”, the “Ottoman & Tatar Lands”, and in the North Sea, the “Maritime Powers” – an amalgamation of France, England and The Netherlands. Independent units start in these areas and more can be placed each round by the Prussian player (see my previous article on Prussia in Baltic Empires for an explanation on how and why). During their turn, players may spend thalers (the money resource of Baltic Empires) to ally with Independent units and control them during their turn. This simple mechanism in itself does a great job at representing the minor interventions in Baltic affairs, where rulers could secure outside assistance in their wars.
The Dramatis Personae (DP) mechanism, where players add a card to their Power Mat and gain the abilities of that card, adds another layer of showing the actions of admirals, rulers, and diplomats from these foreign powers that played a major role in the history of the Baltic region. In addition to the DP cards mentioned in this article, there are several other DP cards representing individuals from outside the Baltic region who were not representatives of these major powers, but rather of the major banking houses of Europe or simply individuals whose deeds as merchants, industrialists or military thinkers had a big impact on the events covered by the game.
The Maritime Powers(The Netherlands, England, and France)
The Sound Due was a source of immense wealth to the Danish kings, as the flow of trade between the Baltic ports and England and the Netherlands all had to pass through the narrow Danish-controlled waters. It was collected at Kronborg Castle in Elsinore (of Hamlet fame) and was from 1548 onwards based on the value of a ship´s cargo. In order to combat fraud, the local authorities there were authorized to buy a cargo at the declared price if they had a suspicion that it was deliberately set lower than the market value (the effect of the Sound Due in Baltic Empires, and how it generates thalers for Denmark is described in detail in my earlier article on Denmark-Norway). This toll was a source of immense irritation to the maritime powers who were heavily dependent on their Baltic trade for timber, flax, hemp, grain and various other goods to sustain their fleets and growing urban populations.
In Baltic Empires this trade with the Dutch and English is represented in the “Maritime Trade Phase”, where players may trade a number of their collected goods depending on their position on the Mercantile Hegemon Track, and in exchange draw an equal number of special Maritime Trade Goods. These are either rare Goods types not found on the map (and thus valuable for the players since you pay for things with sets of different Goods) or Thalers (which are even more valuable as they are wild-card goods and are the only resource you can use to pay upkeep and repay loans). Besides its economic importance, the Baltic region was an integral part of the European balance of power. As such the region was of interest to major powers such as France, whose very active policy of subsidies and alliances meant that several of the wars fought in the Baltic during the period covered by the game (1558-1721) were to a large degree proxy wars or parallel wars to those fought by Louis the XIV in western Europe.
Cornelis Tromp(1629-1691)
Tromp was a Dutch naval officer sent to Denmark during the Scanian War against Sweden (1675-79) to serve as an admiral in the Danish Navy. He performed well in this role and was instrumental in the victory in the battle of Öland in 1676. As an officer Tromp was infamous for his insubordination. He was a very aggressive commander who relished the fight, and as a result often had to change ships during battle, but he was nevertheless popular with his crews despite the danger he put them in. At home, without fighting to distract him, he had the reputation of being a heavy drinker, so much so that many inns at the time were named after him.
In Baltic Empires, the Tromp card represents an alliance with the Dutch, rewarding you with a special Leader unit. Leader units move and fight as normal units of their type (in this case a Ship of the Line), but with some benefits that either effect the unit or all friendly units with it, as detailed on the card. Tromp´s skill as a successful naval commander is represented by an ability which transforms one enemy “Probably Hit” result into a “Miss”, thus potentially reducing friendly losses when Tromp. This might seem counterintuitive considering Tromps record of daring and danger, but these exact qualities also ensured that naval battles would be decided far quicker and in a more decisive manner, which ensured overall lower losses than those seen in a protracted battle.
Another benefit to this Leader unit is that, for most Powers, the cost of a Ship of the Line unit is higher than the cost of a Dramatis Personae card, so if you were considering building ships anyway, the draw of a card that gives you an even more potent unit for a lower cost is often a welcome bonus.
A painting of the battle of Öland (1676), showing Dutch and Danish ships fighting against the Swedish navy
Coenraad van Beuningen(1622-1693)
Van Beuningen was the Dutch Republic’s most experienced diplomat, burgomaster of Amsterdam for many years, as well as the director of the Dutch East India Company. He keenly understood the importance for the Dutch Republic of not having a single power controlling the entrance to the critical Baltic region and is credited with saying that: “The keys of Öresund lay in a dock in Amsterdam”. Van Beuningen was a highly intelligent man with interests in art, theology and natural sciences, but also with a strong interest in mysticism, astrology, dream-interpretation, and supernatural wonders. The shock of losing his fortune through speculation in shares in 1688 made him bipolar, and he was locked up after writing letters to the ecclesiastical authorities about the coming apocalypse and painting Kabbalistic signs on his house. He died in poverty, leaving only a cape and two dressing gowns, a few pieces of furniture, and “a man’s portrait” by Rembrandt valued at seven guilders (three dollars).
In Baltic Empires, Coenrad van Beuningen directly reflects Dutch foreign policy and the goal of opening up the Sound to Dutch trade. This would happen by creating a situation where no single power held both shores of the Sound. By aligning your Power with the Dutch views on the Sound (in game terms, having van Beuningen in your Court) you are rewarded with beneficial trade deals and access to lots of capital. This is represented with the +2 modifier to the Mercantile Hegemon track, as well as increasing your Loan Limit. Should the situation in the Sound be resolved in favor of the Dutch you are rewarded even further with annual subsidies.
Van Beuningen can be useful to all players, as there is no requirement for your power to be actively part of events in the Sound, although he will likely appeal more to those powers who are already heavily committed to the affairs of the Sound: Denmark and Sweden. For the former, Beuningen is obviously mostly interesting if you fail to keep your control of Scania, in which case he helps cushioning the blow of losing the Sound Due Thalers and let you pursue other paths to victory – which is more or less exactly what happened in the Baltics after Sweden acquired control of Scania in 1658 and Dutch policies shifted from supporting Sweden to one of supporting Denmark defend their islands from the Swedes.
George Rooke (1650-1709)
Goerge Rooke was an English naval officer who saw extensive action against the Dutch, French, and Spanish during his long career. In the Baltic context he is mainly known for commanding the Anglo-Dutch Squadron that cooperated with the Swedish fleet in 1700. This squadron attacked Copenhagen and made it possible for King Charles XII to land and knock Denmark out of the Great Northern War (1700-21) in its opening phases. After the short Danish campaign Rooke would fight in the War of Spanish Succession (1701-14). Here he would capture the Spanish treasure fleet in the Battle of Vigo Bay in 1702 and command the Allied naval forces that captured Gibraltar in 1704, where a statue of him was raised in 2004.
The Baltic Empires version of George Rooke closely mirrors the historical Rooke. He is represented as a Ship of the Line Leader unit that gives you control over Independent units in the same sea area and must enter the game in the in the North or Norwegian Sea. Due to his entry restrictions Rooke will likely only be interesting for the Danish player, or for Powers that want to contest Denmark’s control of the seas. His benefits are highly situational, and if the North Sea is empty of Independent ships or if Denmark´s naval situation is too strong and secure he will likely be passed over for the other four cards available that round, or any other pressing concerns troubling the players at the time. But if the English offers of naval support come at a critical time and the conditions are right the questions of who gets George Rooke will cause lots of angst in the Production Phase, and will be one of the most talked about events after the game.
Thomas Roe(1581-1644)
Thomas Roe was an English diplomat whose voyages ranged from Central America to India, and who worked as ambassador to the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire. and the Holy Roman Empire. During the Thirty Years War (1618-48) he brokered a peace between Sweden and Poland and strove to get Denmark and Sweden to join the Protestant anti-Habsburg coalition.
In Baltic Empires, Thomas Roe is shown more as an abstract representation of British diplomatic and economic pressure in general, and less as a representation of Roe’s personal achievements specifically. He allows the Power allied with Britain (represented by having Roe in your Court) to choose any one of the other powers in the game and effectively cripple their Maritime Trade Phase by limiting them to only trading a single Good. As a side benefit, he also increases your Power’s position on the Mercantile Track to represent increased trade with England. During a game the former is a hugely interesting power to wield as it can be used both to hurt enemies but also as a tool for diplomacy/blackmail, and it is my experience that Thomas Roe is a card that increases the intensity of the table talk.
King Louis XIV(1638-1715)
Louis XIV, the “Sun King”, was king of France from 1643 and his reign of 72 years is the longest recorded reign of any monarch in European history. Louis’s France was emblematic of absolutism as exemplified in the quote: “L’état, c’est moi”(“I am the state”). His revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685 abolished the rights of the Protestant Huguenots and the resultant stream of Huguenot refugees to the Baltic region brought with them valuable technical skills. In the Baltic context he is mainly known for thoroughly intertwining Baltic power politics with the greater European power politics, as he sought to distract his Habsburg enemies by subsidizing the standing army of his ally Sweden.
No game on early modern power politics and war would be complete without Louis XIV! In Baltic Empires, the Louis XIV card reflects the massive impact on the Baltic scene of the Sun King’s many wars against his English, Dutch, and Habsburg rivals. His effects are two-fold, and one of only a handful of multi-category cards (Immediate and Permanent effects in this case). Upon getting Louis in your court the strong French armies will cause an abrupt diversion of Habsburg attention away from the Baltic and towards the borders with France, as represented by the removal of all independent units in the Habsburg Lands at that time. As with George Rooke above, the impact of this effect is largely situational. His other effect, representing the substantial subsidies Louis offered Sweden to maintain a large army at all times (so France’s German opponents would always have to watch their back), is a permanent effect. A -2 reduction of your Power’s upkeep costs is a significant boost, and especially so since upkeep costs can only be paid using ever scarce Thalers. Just as in history, an alliance with Louis XIV will allow your Power to maintain a far larger army without going bankrupt.
That’s all from the Netherlands, England, and France! In the second part of this article we will look at some personalities from the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire who played an important role in Baltic affairs.
In the game of rubamazzetto the cards are shuffled and four are placed on the table and then distributed among the players to the left, so each player has three cards. Each player takes a turn. When a card on the table matches the player can sweep it by placing their card above the card and taking it. Same goes if a sum of cards on the table sums up to a player card. The player can also take the other player’s pile if the top card matches the player card by placing the card on top of it and taking it (hence, the Italian name, ruba mazzetto AKA Steal Cards). There cards are placed back on the table when they finish and each player keeps on taking a card until all cards on the table are gone. At the end, the player with most cards wins.
Basically every single year I’ve worked for Shut Up & Sit Down, I’ve typed out the words:
“it’s been a weird year”
…and 2025 is proving to be absolutely no exception! We’ve just put out a sponsored video onto the channel, and that feelsweird. I’ve taken some time, below, to chat about why.
The unpredictability, the volatility, the pig-headedness of these tariffs create a huge amount of uncertainty for just about everyone. We’ve been asked about what we’re going to say about it all, but the pace of change makes it tricky! Are they here to stay, or will they be scrapped once cooler heads prevail? Either way, the livelihoods of those affected will have changed significantly for the worse. It’s horrible. We want to help, where possible, and we’re putting together a bit of a plan should the situation stick around.
The tariffs have had a knock-on effect on us, too. Many of the fine folks who have helped us out financially over the years have understandably had to pause their support of the site; as with the potential for huge economic pressure looming, we are a luxury atop a luxury! With board games potentially becoming a far more expensive hobby within its largest market, this drop in interest feels inevitable. And tariffs are not the sole factor, here. The gradual erosion of folks’ disposable income over the last few years is the reason you’ve seen us explore other ways of maybe keeping the lights on – though it didn’t feel like there was any way of communicating this change without feeling like we’d also be pressuring folks towards donating.
I don’t want to play a tiny violin and make this massive, scary shift about us; the publishers with far more on the line, with funds tied up in product? They have got it far worse off, and we want to put our energy behind helping them wherever possible – we don’t exist, and our hobby doesn’t exist, without them. But I wouldn’t be showing the whole picture here if I didn’t acknowledge the immediate effects on us, and how they are affecting our decisions.
That’s the thrust of it – we want to make sure that we’re sustaining ourselves as a platform that might get people to the table, when the industry needs folks playing their board games. We want to be making great videos about those board games until we’re old and grey, and the occasional sponsorship will keep us afloat to do just that.
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Speaking personally, I am immensely grateful for this job, because it’s something I love to do. We are all salaried at a reasonable wage, but the job itself is a lot of the reward. Whilst I personally was pretty hungry for growth, and numbers getting bigger… right now? I will have lived a contented life if this channel stays exactly as it is, with a community as lovely and easygoing as you lot. Making mostly dumb, occasionally smart videos about board games? It’s a joy, and a great privilege!
If you have supported the site over the years – Thank You, Thank You, Thank You. It’s because of your generosity that we get to make sometimes goofy (and sometimes quite serious!) videos about cardboard, for everyone.
Donations make up the vast majority of the revenue that keeps us going. To have the time to really take care with every video and podcast – to make them special, and weird, and honest? We take that honour and obligation very seriously, and as our “boss” I hope you can continue to be proud of our direction, and the work we’re doing.
Growth is neat, profit is cool, but stability is a lot more valuable to me – to us! The odd sponsored video now and again is not to line our personal pockets and juice our platform for pennies, but to stabilise the channel against instability in all forms. We wouldn’t be taking it on if it wasn’t necessary for that purpose.
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So, importantly, what are our big picture policies regarding this stuff?
First off – we’re never going to put anything in front of you without absolutely screaming it is sponsored. I think that we’ve done decently well with this in the past, but we’re going to make sure it’s clear as crystal where the lines between coverage and promotion lie.
Secondly – any sponsored videos we make are in addition to, not instead of, our regular reviews. We don’t want to be committing time to these projects at the cost of our regular review output, and those videos will still be the same as they ever were.
Thirdly, and more vaguely, I suppose; we want to feel good about the thing we’re actually being sponsored by. We want any of these kinds of videos to be honest, because honesty is a core part of what we do!
It’s important to us that we’re able to chat openly about the thing we just played afterwards, and we won’t lean into anything that we wouldn’t normally bat for. We also don’t want to take sponsorships for completely irrelevant things, either – we’ve turned down a lot of sponsorships for your classic Nord VPNs, your Skillshares, your Raid: Shadow Legendses! We don’t want to waste your time with things that we don’t think would at least be of passing interest to you, because they will be things that are of passing interest to us!
Finally, we are not going to be doing sponsored videos for individual board games, or publishers, that could be mistaken for reviews. It’s important to us that our editorial voice is clear as day in our bread-and-butter coverage, and that’s not going to change. SHUX Previews, that we’ve done in the past, are a slightly different bag – those were deeply important in making SHUX a reality, and we think there’s no confusing them with a standard review.
Of course, this might all be a little hypothetical – we’re only going to take sponsorships that seem like they fit, and that let us talk about the thing we’re covering pretty openly! That might be a sufficiently irritating combo of things that this could be our first and last foray into this world! And, ultimately, we do want to return to the simplicity of donors, ad revenue (it’s much less than you think), and side projects like Wilmot’s Warehouse and SU&SD Presents to be our ways of making a living.
But to get to that future, we need to keep pottering along now.
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That’s a lot! Reading back through it, some of the language almost seems a little melodramatic for a pretty simple tweak to the channel – “YouTube channel contains Sponsored Content” isn’t a headline you’d expect to turn heads, but for a bunch of folks – including us – this will feel like a bit of a surprise.
I think of SU&SD as a channel that’s broadly been steered by real principle and transparency. We’ve been quite unique in entirely sticking to videos free from publisher influence, and have remained trustworthy over the years that we’ve been active in the space. We’re honest about what we like and why, and I think that makes us useful.
But the site began in a fundamentally different media landscape, and things have changed a hell of a lot. We’re still a very small fish in the grand scheme of YouTube, and fighting for that same level of exposure and support gets tougher every single year.
I’ve gone from starting at the site to heading it in what feels like a blink of an eye. I don’t want to ruin the thing that I fell in love with, and I don’t think I am! SU&SD fundamentally wants to do the best by the people who support it – and to do that it needs to exist. But, please do make your voice heard below if you have questions or concerns with anything I’ve rambled about here.
I’m hoping that you can see this as what it is, to me; that anything sponsored on the channel will be a fun little extra, with our bread-and-butter tabletop coverage remaining much the same as it’s ever been, come rain or shine.
Thanks for reading! Next week’s video is our regular, daft stuff.
Bringing a game to market is an expensive and time consuming proposition (follow along as we take Froggy Bazaar from an idea to publication & beyond). It’s easy to over-estimate the value of your game idea, and underestimate the value of the rest of the process of bringing a game to market.
In short, even if your game rocks it isn’t worth it for anyone else to steal it.
Stealing a game would also come with a lot of risk. The indie design community is small and close-knit. And indie game consumers likely wouldn’t be forgiving towards a publisher who stole another designer’s game.
You do occasionally see successful games re-implemented like Cards Against Humanity broadly re-implemented Apples to Apples with NSFW content. But, I don’t know of any instances where an indie design was ripped off especially before publication.
So, get to playtesting!
Where to Find Playtesters
I like to think of playtesting in a couple of categories each with a different audience, and with different goals. Where you go to find playtesters in each stage will vary. And, as you playtest more you’ll be sourcing playtesters more broadly outside of your immediate circle.
Early Stage
The earliest stages of playtesting you’ll be figuring out whether your game is fun and functional. This will mostly be playing by yourself and roping family and friends into games while you iterate on rules.
Where to find early stage playtesters:
Mid Stage
As your game progresses you’ll be focused on developing the game, balancing it, and finding your audience. In some playtests you’ll be focused on getting feedback on specific mechanisms or interactions, in others you’ll want broad feedback, and in others you’ll be focused on what gamers your game gels with.
Before I draw a new card, there are two lore counters on it.
I draw the card, and a new lore token is added, causing the third ability of the saga to trigger.
This third triggered ability goes on the stack.
Before the ability resolves, I cast Clockspinning, indicating that I intend to use it by removing a lore counter (the third one, obviously) from the Saga.
The stack should therefore be formed as follows:
On top, Clockspinning, causing the removal of a lore counter, which resolves first;
Below that, the trigger of the third ability of the Saga.
When all of this will be resolved, finally there is the check of the exact number of lore counters on The Saga.
The Saga will not be sacrificed, because after the check the number of the lore counters is not three yet.
This way I think I will be able to use the third ability of the Saga a second time.
Tom: Hello folks! Welcome to Wednesday, the very first of February! You’re reading this direct from the café where I’ve set up a temporary office to fill out our monthly schedule, to craft this very post, and to write our next video review! It’s all very exciting. I’ve got my laptop, a big coffee, an HP Deskjet 2710e, a second monitor, and a massive boom mic for a quick podcast record while I’m here. My ‘associates’ should be arriving any minute.
Let’s talk about videos! Our next review will be for the hot new Splotter game – Horseless Carriage! You can look forward to that, hopefully, next week. Where does it sit in the Splotter Canon? You’re going to have to wait to find out, but I should hope it’ll be an interesting video. The next video after that will be the first from Quinns this year – on yet another classic family-weight game involving pleasing, clacky components! What might it be? I’m going to leave this one as a teaser, just for fun!
Audio-wise, we’ve got some treats! This week’s pod will be the fabled CCG Double-Feature, where myself and Quinns go head to head in a… well, hopefully quite a nice chat about two interesting new CCGs! After that, you can expect a smattering of ‘what have we been playing’ podcasts, as well as some full-fat-thoughts on Paperback Adventures! I’m hoping, too, that we might even have something special ready for the end of the month, but I’ll tease no more than that.
Lastly, what about streams? Yesterday we played some Against The Storm, a fascinating little Roguelike City Builder! That, and the previous stream, will be available as VODs over on the Twitch. Next week’s stream will most likely be a Destiny 2 dungeon or two with a couple friends of the show, schedules permitting, and the week after that we’ll be playing some of the digital implementation of Paperback Adventures.
That’s the month! Some great stuff coming down the pipe for you all to look forward to – hopefully not too messed around by me moving into a new flat! Wish us luck, we’re hoping to get the paperwork signed so I can continue on living life as normally as a professional board game reviewer can.
Thanks everyone! What have you been up to, recently?
If you had to give an elevator pitch to attract new players into LARPing, what would you say?
Erin: At its core, LARP is about coming together with other people and exploring a story that none of you could tell alone. People come for lots of different reasons: wanting to act out a role; looking for something more immersive than tabletop or videogames; making music or other performances; crafting flashy costumes. But strip all of that away and there’s no feeling quite like your heartbeat racing as you wait to see the consequences of your actions, or just sitting back and bathing in the atmosphere of a group of people creating a world together.
For those who picture LARPing as wearing costumes in a field, please could you explain a bit about chamber LARPs – what do these involve, and what do players spend their time doing during a game?
Jon: The focus is generally on social interactions, which might be very political and strategic or just hanging out as your characters. There’s also space for very personal storytelling, one of the central themes of Changeling is having your life turned completely upside down by a magical, incomprehensible experience, and trying to make sense of what to do next.
That said, all those things are often possible in “field” LARPs too, so I suppose the biggest difference is that there are fewer rules, and no dramatic combat or spell-slinging. Problems are more likely to be solved with discussion, negotiation, and problem-solving.
