Ludology Episode 125 - Checking Out

This episode of Ludology is produced by Steven Brokue and Jonathan Teston. Welcome to Ludology, a podcast about the why of gaming with Mike Fitzgerald and Jeff Angleston. Ludology Episode 125. Checking out. Oh, yes, this is part three of the game design checklist series. And this has been a lot of fun and I can't wait to find out what's our sort of take on it this time, Jeff. Well, this time we're going to talk about questions relating to production and, you know, kind of the more of the final parts of the game. There's some non-production stuff here, but but in general, this is stuff that you would address later on in the development cycle. Not, you know, in the beginning when you're designing, you know, we kind of have done them roughly in chronological order through the process where you look at the experience and your target audience. And what you're trying to accomplish when you kind of are fine tuning your mechanics was the second part of the checklist. And now it's more, you know, this is the final, you know, nuts and bolts kind of polishing stuff that you look into. And so in some of those designers who never really guessed to this part, ever, it gets, I let other people do this. This will be interesting to know. I mean, we're all, I think we're all thinking about this stuff, whether we let a publisher take the game or obviously people who kickstart and do their own game A to Z. This is, this is really prime stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we're not really specifically getting into Kickstarter. That's, that's probably a whole checklist all unto itself. And I know folks are telling sure it is. Yes. But, you know, certainly a lot of these tips are going to apply regardless of, you know, how you're ultimately selling it, whether it's through Kickstarter or, you know, whether you're selling it through a publisher or whether you're just kind of doing it yourself. So, and, you know, you know, talking to game designers out there that maybe have not had a game published yet. You know, every publishing house is somewhat different on this. And, but in all of the experiences that I have had is that as a designer, you know, I've been very, very involved in working with the artists in developing the graphic style in dealing with iconography in reviewing all the rules, you know, obviously in writing the rules. You know, doing final proof checks on stuff before it goes to the printer, you know, I've been involved in a lot of those decisions and maybe it's just the publishers that I've worked with. I'm sure that there are some you just sign it, the contract and you've just walk away and never see anything until the game is on the shelf. But I think for most publishers that people are going to be dealing with, you know, you're definitely going to be involved. You don't have the final say, but you're certainly going to be involved in these items. So it's so different depending on the publisher, I have hit points where they will say, do you want any involvement? So they'll leave that choice to me. And if they tell me there's a chance I do. And so not that I have the final say, as you said, but to get the input in at the game we're developing is we do have a vision of it and we'd like to, you know, see how close we get to that. So that's nice. I've also had the ones where they will tell you we may change everything about this game and you may not recognize it, but that's just what we do. So thank you for the game and you know, you'll see it in the stores. So so I've had that too. Yes, the person, I mean most of my relationships with publishers is excellent though. The things go back and forth. We discuss it. It's open talking and that's really fun. I think to be involved with the project right up to the publication. Right. And I think we talked about this last time, but I really believe that first of all most publishers are good people in general. And I, you know, and almost all of them want to have happy designers. You know, nobody wants a game to come out and then the designer is just badmouthing it or you know, yes, I don't have the product or whatever. So, right. You know, everybody's typically pushing in the same direction and wants to achieve that goal. Oh yes, I think you're right there. So where do we start? I guess we're going to start at the, at the end. And it's interesting. When, I mean, we're going to talk about the price point of the game. Now with this number, we're talking, I think we're talking about MSRP and there's a lot of things that go into that. The publisher obviously. You know, salsa distributors and different things go on, but it's that what's that price point going to be when the customer goes into by the game. And I, you know, I don't usually think about that much when I'm designing. Do you, do you keep that in your, in your mind, Jeff? Yeah, I really do. And that's, you know, and I actually kind of think about that really early in the, in the design cycle. Because I think that that affects a lot of the decisions that you're making when designing the game is, you know, if it's a, you know, is it a $20 game? Is it a $50 game? Is it a $100 game? I mean, that's, that's makes a big difference. I mean, I'm working on a game. I can't reveal the theme in the nature of it now. But it's, it's a relatively fast playing card type game. Although there's other components with it. And, you know, it seemed to me when we were designing it is what is, you know, what, what I thought was probably be a $20 game. So then when I was working on it and there were some decisions I was making that I was actually a little concerned about some of the directions that I was going in because I knew what was in a $20 game versus in a $50 game. And I think that you had need to kind of have that in mind. And like I said, based on the experience that you're trying to get based on the target audience, you're trying to do. And the duration of the game, you know, if you're making a game that's going to be a 15 20 minute game, that's not going to be it's hard for that to be a $100 price point. So you got to, you got to kind of make sure that all that stuff fits together. Yeah, well, well, with me, I guess since I've done mostly card games and things that don't have a lot of extra components for most of my career, I sort of figure I'm always sort of in the same area. And I think every game I've made up until baseball highlights has been in a lower price point area. Baseball highlights surprise me because I, you know, it's a card game and there is some need for boards and stuff. And when it got to production point, they just decided to go crazy with the production and end up with a game that was more expensive, but they give you a lot of stuff. And the card quality is through the roof and all the expenses we added in. So everything I'm working on that game is interesting to me because that price point was not maybe what I had guessed it would be early on. Then I make this board game, which I can now say is signed with R&R Games Dragon Island. And I knew that had a lot of components, right? But it's not that I said to myself, well, I don't know what, you know, what is that price point? It's really what the manufacturer can do. So we have gone through discussions like, well, can we lower the number of dragons that have to be in the game and what are they going to look like and stuff or not? And, you know, he's pricing everything. So there's all kinds of stuff that goes into it, but it's not going to be a lower price point game because it has a lot to it. So, so you do, I guess you're the bars a little higher for certain things in the game, the quality, the experience that it be at that level for that price. And what about, what is the price range now? When I started making games, I think you could get a game for six bucks, a little card game stuff in the early 90s, all the way, you know, and a $30, $40 war game was a lot. I mean, that was paying like, wow, I'm paying $40 for a game. I've been a love this game. And now that seems to be an average for, you know, for an average of your own game, you know, your pet for you. Yeah, I think I'm probably a little behind the times too in my thinking, you know, because I mean, in my head, I think like 40 to 50 is kind of a mid range game, Euro type game. But I think in actuality, there's a ton of games that are now at the $60 price point. They are. And now we have $100 games. We have games that are retailing at $100. Now that doesn't mean you have to spend on you. You can find them a little less, you know, online or different deals that are made this and that. But boy, we're up into that three figure area. And of course those games have a lot of stuff in them. Yeah, but it certainly is not shocking anymore to see a hundred all a game. I remember when the first one came out, it was really everyone kind of fell off their chairs a little bit. And it was like, wow, is this is really direction. I think 80 was the highest before then. So yeah. And it was probably fantasy flight. I think that kind of pushed the bar on some of those things. And, you know, so it's it's it's interesting the way that the perceptions that I've changed in the marketplace just kind of gets used to it. And again, you can make arguments that, you know, the cost. If you go to the movies, the family of four and by a large popcorn, you know, it's going to cost you 80 bucks or whatever. Yeah, that's right. Now you probably probably saw this, but I've read this thing online about how the call how the MSRP comes about four games. And they started right from the beginning. And this I guess is for people who, you know, even for Kickstarter people, although the result might be a little different. But they were saying that a normal game publisher in the end is going to going to tag that price at five times. The landing cost of the game, which means what it costs to have it produced, have it shipped boxed up and shipped and gotten to his his fulfillment place that he's going to be sending it out from. And that's that's pretty typical. Yeah. And that's what I've seen in in the publications that I've been involved in. You know, if it's selling for 50 bucks, it's probably you're probably printing it and shipping it. here into the US for $10. - $10 a piece, yep. - Right, so yeah. - Interesting stuff. - Yeah, and that question number two is kind of related to that, which is do your components support the price point that you're targeting? That's what I was kind of looting to before, with this quick play card game that I had. One of the concerns I had was that each, it's teams, it's a team game, and each team needed a separate deck of 40 cards. So now you're in 120 cards, if you want to include decks for three teams, and there's some other stuff that goes with it. And so now you're looking at, well, 120 cards, how much is that gonna be, and how much extra stuff can I put in the box, and still have a B at $20 game, which means again, you gotta make it for like $4. So, you know, and I'm looking at it and saying it can't really be a $50 game, I don't think, without-- - Well, without really redesigning it and spiffing up the components and really the gameplay, too. - So, that is interesting. I don't, and maybe I should start doing this, I don't know, but I usually keep in mind, how good or how involved the game is, and how that might reflect to price point. But you make a good point. I mean, if because of the content of cards, like if everybody, let's just say everybody had the same deck, which I'm sure they don't write in this game, that you're talking about. But if they had just the same cards reprinted, they were like, and you had stuff in the box, and they were charging 50, a lot of players would be disappointed in that. What am I really getting for that? - Right, exactly. And we've all had that experience, we opened a box and it's just huge amounts of empty spaces. - Oh, yes, the air. Is this air that expensive? - Yes. - And then we go to, are the components designed to support the experience? And you know, both of these things are important. Like I've opened up, you know, you opened up war games in the past, and they would use little paper counters, and they'd, you know, the maps would be paper, and as the hobby grows, a company like GMT, wow. They do us some beautiful productions now, but those prices have to go up, because now they're talking amount of boards, and they're talking, I mean, counters, this new game, a talent Jeff, you have to see the counters in talent. They're beautiful, they're, it's really rivals a miniature, how nice the counter looks on the board. And so I think this is the kind of feel. I mean, the bars been raised, and you're gonna disappoint a lot of people if the components are not fitting the theme, and not really supporting the experience. It's like, when I used to play a lot of chess, I like the heavier chess pieces, you know, and somebody brings out a light set and a chess club or something, oh, this isn't, this isn't a fun. They gotta have the heavy pieces. So we want the good, the good components have become a big part of this bar raising now for games. And so you've gotta make sure, okay, this is probably gonna be the price point, and work with a publisher, if you're the designer doing that, you can say, you know, oh gee, do you think that is gonna be good enough, a component to go, with this experience or this game? - Right, and one of the things, I'd like to go with Dragon and Flaggen, 'cause I've been deeply involved in it for a bunch of weeks now of going through all the components. And there's been a bunch of things there, like the tables that, you know, we wanna have this 3D effect. So the tables are gonna be out of, you know, a punchboard, but they gotta like bend up, and there's different pieces in the way that has to be engineered, and they have to assemble. There's barrels that you can push around, so I've managed to, pending getting the final quote from the publisher, we're planning on having actual wooden barrels. - Sweet. - And that kind of stuff is really, you know, that's talking about supporting the experience, and creating that, you know, creating that mood and drawing the players into that world. And sometimes that may cost election money, but sometimes the things you can do, with art and stuff that really doesn't cost much on a production level, but that still, you know, creates that atmosphere. - Now you need a flag, you know, you need a flag and this a real flag in, to come with a game. So, and then, and then, - Come out of the media. - You can have a flag in there. - You can actually load it up and be, have an assipurative while you're playing. I'm watching Eric Lang from Gamma the other day. - Yes. - That was a nice feed that BGG did. They did live streaming both days, and I was sort of addicted to it. And Eric's talking about his new game, The Godfather, The Board Game, and the thing that makes the game, he said, is The Horses Head. So they came up with this big, beautiful, The Horses Head model, duh, and I don't know how much it really does in the game, except Star Player, I think, or, you know, which may move around, but it's what everybody's reacting to when they see the quality of the game and the minis and what they're gonna do. - Cool. - Yep. - You gotta have, you gotta push for a real flag and I'll throw in a word with Steven about that. - Okay. - So question number four, I think is a really critical one. And that's, are the components designed to intuitively support the mechanics? And that covers a lot of area. So that's, you know, both the physicality of the components as well as kind of the graphics, so that we're gonna get into that a little bit more later. But, you know, I think that there's ways to do components that guide the players through the game and help them. - Yes, and there are, I'll tell you the one that bothers me the most and it's a physical thing, but you get a, you know, a nice game, you got the cool components and they don't fit on the spaces on the board. They don't work. You put, they cover up too much, you can't tell what spaces, and I've seen this happen time and time again. What is going on here? You know, that's a big, big problem. And of course, what can you do on the component to make the gameplay more intuitive? Maybe you can put icons or something that goes along with the rules. You know, any way you can integrate as you're saying, makes it seamless. You know, when you're having the experience of the gameplay, you don't wanna have to think while I'm moving this super little thing around, but I'm doing something, I'm just following through my strategy for the game and this is what I do and all fits together. - Yeah, and a game which, in some ways gets it right in some ways gets it wrong, I think is alchemists, which has, you know, they obviously put a lot of effort into coming up with this deduction board with these little holes in it, where you can kind of cross reference your components and the, the ingredients that you're mixing to see what they do, and you've got these little circular tokens that you put in there. And, you know, once you understand it, it works really well, but at the same time, they try to make the components really support the experience by having this, you build this giant, cauldron type thing, you know, in front of you and you're supposed to balance your cards on top of it, but just the way it's constructed, it really doesn't work all that well. It doesn't, you know, in the end, we just ended up chucking it and, you know, just laying the cards on the table and we found that a lot easier to deal with. So, you know, you gotta, this certainly, you know, it can do great to bring the player in more, and make it easier for them to play it, and understand where things are supposed to go. You know, things are certain shape, make the, you know, make that the shape, that's the space that shape on the board. - Yes, that's right. - So you know, it's very clear, that kind of thing. - That would help. - Yep. - But at the same time, it's, you know, it's, you don't wanna get too fancy where it's gonna, it's gonna backfire on you. - Yeah, it's a, it is an easy thing to do, although I think, you know, making the spaces, so you can put the piece in the spaces is pretty simple. But making it really elegant and work seamlessly is not easy. And this is a real talent, I think, and a lot of publishers have people, you know, that do this kind of thing, graphic design and stuff, and then if they work closely with a designer, you can sometimes get something special, which I think is good. - Okay. Question number five, we did an entire show on. - Yes. - We can do two years on this. I mean, come on. - Question number five is, do the rules function as both tutorial and reference? So if you haven't listened to it, you should go back and hear our show about rules. And, you know, the basic idea is that rules have to serve two purposes for the players. One is that they have to be, they have to teach the players how to play the game, but then they also have to serve later, if you need to quickly look up a rule or find a small detail, it has to be really obvious where you need to go in the rules. And sometimes those two are at odds. - Oh, very often, yeah. - And so actually Fantasy Flight has taken to, now they split their rules, they have the learning guide, and then they have a separate rule book. And sometimes that works better than others for them, but in general, I applaud the method that they're doing. But we spent a lot of time on this in an earlier episode. So, you know, we can spend a little bit of time here, but, you know, for more detail, definitely go back and check out that episode. - Right, right, what I'd like to do is just go down a couple of these other questions that Jeff has put in associated kind of with rules. And then, I did do a little research on the geek, and I just want to mention what players feel, you know, are the best kind of rule books, because as a designer, you're trying to present something to publisher or go to Kickstarter with a good rule book. And more and more now, I think people are talking about this, and there's some interesting things. So, the next question was, has someone else reviewed and edited the rules? Well, it's certainly optional. In my case, they have to. I mean, there's no way that my rules get out, but you need people to review and edit, reference materials, and boy, we use these in games a lot. The reference cards, explanations on a map, or on a. out of board. If they're required, make sure that they're there. Again, some of these questions aren't yes or no and that is on checklist, but there's something you should think about, right? Is it something that I should have? Right. And some of that is also going to come into negotiations with the publisher, discussions with the publisher in terms of how much extra money they want to spend on reference materials. How big the reference materials should be. I just recently played a game called Three Kingdoms, which is a strictly three-player game about battling over China, which is very interesting, but the reference sheets for each player are these double-sided 11 inch by 11 inch squares with very tiny type. Only information you need is there, but they're a little bit intimidating when you're looking at them. So you got to kind of judge that as well in terms of reference materials. Yeah, you're still trying to play these real complicated games, aren't you, Jeff? Okay, well, you have to guess you over to my side, eventually. Although I'm trying to do more, a little more complicated than it used to be. Yes, we will. Yes. How's the game been blind, play tested? Is a very important question. And this is not something that you can yes or no, you just have to make this happen. And it will open your eyes. In fact, if you can, and I've had a chance to do this a couple of times, if you can do it in a focus group style where the people that are playing and aren't seeing you, but you're seeing them, wow, is that great? Now that's a little more expensive, but shopping malls, places like that, you can get the players together. They run these things and you have to have somebody in the room, obviously, to sort of lead the play without telling everybody what to do, but they look at the rule book, they try to play. It's so valuable. Right, Jeff? This is one of those real valuable later steps that you want to do. Absolutely. You got to see where people are getting tripped up. Now on BGG, here's what the players say are the best rule books. Come back to Commander Yorp for a war game, card war game, has reference sections that are listed. It actually references sections in the main rules that you go to when you need more detail. So that when you use it as a reference, you all want to skip to that detail or you go right through the book. Now it's huge. I mean, there's a lot to that game, but it's well-formatted. Elder Charg, it's a lot of praise. And most of the FFG rule books because of what Jeff was saying earlier, they do a tutorial and they do a rule book. Key flower, a lot of people say is great because the left hand side has full rules and the right hand side of the page has those same rules condensed. Right. And that's kind of an interesting idea, right? I think Puerto Rico used that a little bit too, didn't it? Yeah, Mr. Mermey. But yeah, I like the two column one is a nice way to go. Yeah. And they get a good nod to tacky noco because it has a comic book in it. That I guess actually tells the story as well. Now, Rousse Rope, worse rule books, he's got to talk more on Reddit for some reason, the BGG, but people don't like to complain on BGG. Right, but they still on Reddit for sure. Pathfinder, Rise of the Root Lords, they say is not good because the rules for one action be split over multiple sections, and looking for the rule about interactions, because sometimes of operating four to five entire sections and the answers in the middle of some long paragraph. So there's some frustration there. One I agree with that's not good is Robinson Crusoe because there's so many people who love Robinson Crusoe, but they don't like the rule book. And there are a lot of compilations of FAQs and rules, clarifications out there, and still there things players aren't understanding. I've actually tried to play it for the rule book and could not. So I'm actually waiting for Portals next edition, which Ignacy says, you know, they haven't been strong with the rule books, but they're going to be now, and he says they have a really good one. Of course, a hard game to do a rule book too. There's a lot to Robinson Crusoe. Yeah. And rule books, again, that outside help is invaluable, whether it's in the form of just an editor looking at it or play other players, just picking up your rules and trying to learn from it, you're going to get your men to speed back. And sometimes, if you really surprised at the questions that you get. Oh, absolutely. And you could be assuming something the whole time, and you realize, duh, I never thought of that. You know, the, I want to mention a game from Days of Wonder coming out soon called a quadropolis, because I think in the future, this is the way to go with the rule book. I will never need to read this rule book. Now, I'll grant you it's a simple game. Okay, the rules are simple. But that's because of the video tutorials. I mean, Roddy Smith did a great one. There's, oh, they're all over the place on the internet. Just go to quadropolis. You want to see them. What I will need to look at is the player rate for scoring, because that's where the complexity comes and is a city building game where everything scores based on where your buildings are on, on your little board. But I think this is a great concept is, you know, do whatever you can to get the rules out there in videos. So people would feel comfortable right away. They don't get intimidated by, oh, where do I start? What do I pick out? What do I do? And then your rules get a little more like a reference than they do a tutorial. You do, though, have to have the good rule book in the game still. But how many people do we know right? Just say they don't want to read rules. There's no one to do it. Yeah. And I have, yeah, and for, for Space Cadets and Dice Tool, both we did, I did our own kind of video tutorials animated stuff. And they take a lot of effort. So certainly, if you know, using somebody else to do it is good. But yeah, it's amazing how much easier it is for people to learn in that fashion as opposed to reading a rule book. And so that's why I think roles of people like Rodney doing, watch a play and stuff like that can be a tremendous help for people. Oh, yeah. And you put that little QDR reader thing on your rule book, maybe just put it say, look here first and you'll be on your way. So that's certainly a good thing. Yeah. So just for those of you scoring at home, the rules questions again, we're five, do the number five to the rules function as both tutorial and reference. Number six has someone else reviewed and edited the rules. Number seven are any reference materials, which can be reference cards or on map on board explanations required. And number eight has the game been blind to play tested. Yep. So now ready for question number nine, you want to? Yeah, this time we're going into boys, this is a weakness for me, this area. But is the graphic design appropriate for the theme experience and target audience? And I'm watching this gamma stream and Eric Lang is going on and on before he shows anything that's prototype saying how horrible his graphic design is. Now it's not horrible. It's actually, you know, user friendly, which I think is what you have to go for. But I have seen people in a pretty early prototype have really art that sort of, wow, this is like a lot of work, one of the art of the layout. And I'm just thinking to myself, this is pretty early, if they have to change everything, it's like, oh, shout out. Yes. And, and, you know, I think I've learned over the years to do, you know, the basic stuff. I try to do a little more now than before. But for me, that doesn't make it look like finished product. You do pretty well, Jeff, I think, because, you know, you're, you know, I've seen nice maps. I've seen, you know, pieces. So you take that graphic design a little further. I guess you, I guess the perfect idea is to show the publisher how graphics can be used to express the theme experience and fit the target audience. Well, I think, I mean, I, you know, when I do very, very rudimentary stuff, I mean, I know illustrator, Adobe Illustrator, I use to do most of my cards and stuff. And I try to keep it really simple. I don't worry as much about putting pretty pictures on stuff, you know, I do a lot of just graphics and play with the icons, but because I almost feel like the play tests that I'm doing over the months and years that I'm working on these things that that one of the things I want to get on the play test too is what, how do people use, understand the cards and icons and things like that as part of it? Oh, that's good. Yeah. You know, what's actually really important to, you know, as part of learning what people find is difficult and what people, you know, just find very naturally easy. And you know, we're to focus to try to, you know, work on those player aids and get everything together. So yeah, I mean, I like trying to nail that down as part of my design iterations, you know, of looking at how to make something graphically feasible. I would not rely on the publisher to come up with that. I think that's going to be to a certain extent, the responsibility, the designer and it's going to be a lot easier for you to sell and test the game if things are clear and easy for the players to understand. Everyone's going to get a much better impression of it and not have to, you know, stumble over your poor, poor layouts. And you don't have to be an artist to do that. Just talking about being, you know, just, just basic, you know, basic shapes and colors and things like that. Yeah, if I was, I get asked one question, we could ask a lot at conventions among these designer panels sometimes is, you know, how good should my game look before I show it to a publisher? And most of us agree on those panels that it does not, by any means, have to be a finished product. But it should be user friendly and clean. And we usually say do not try to over design it graphically, especially with the art when it comes to art and stuff because sometimes this is something the publisher will have in mind when they see the game. And they'll want, they'll be putting their own ideas into it as they're playing and you don't want to force them away from certain things right away. So, and of course, for me, I can't do it. I mean, I just don't have the time or the inclination. I'll certainly have an idea. I'll say, listen, here's a theme of the game and these should be this and that should be that. But, you know, I've often had the graphic artists at the company come up with much better ideas than I could do. That's been my experience. And you're going to have to throw a lot of stuff away. Oh yeah. So you know, don't and you're going to be much less likely to want to throw it away if you spend a ton of time on art and stuff like that. So yeah, it's I think it's I get some prototypes that I see sometimes that are incredibly, you know, they look like finished games. They look unbelievably fantastic. But then but the gameplay is so, you know, it's just so not there that you kind of feel badly about critiquing it almost. Yeah. It's saying, you know, you may want to lose this mechanic. I know that you put all this effort into it. But so so I just think you but but at the flip side, you know, there reaches a certain stage. I mean, the beginning, you can just scribble stuff on no cards, but in fairly short order, you need to spend the effort to at least make it somewhat present. Yes. And you know, these these software products now, you know, you mentioned Adobe and that's what I use. Adobe Cloud. They are they're not that difficult to get to a point where you can make quick and easily some pretty serviceable stuff and you can make templates and you can what they call master pages and in design. I think that's in the other things too. But you can so you can easily make changes or something and you know, it's going to be a cost of printing. However you want to do it. So I don't you know, I wouldn't do a lot of color readily. I just want to go through ink, you know, like crazy because early on I do I do usually six, seven, eight versions of printing things before I'm at a point where I can say, okay, I think this works because every few weeks or every few, you know, I'll come up with a new wrinkle or I'll realize how this system isn't working right. And so it's back to the back to the computer. But they do have that's a lot of stuff available now for artists. Mostly I think that's their original target. People that do publishing things. But boy, they work nice for game design too. Absolutely. So question number nine is is the graphic design appropriate for the theme experience and target audience? That is number nine. And you know, the target audience is interesting. Jeff, I thought of this the other day my grandkids are watching TV and somebody threw a cartoon on for them because it was a cartoon and it turned out to be one of these, I don't know what's called a call dad or one of the one of these American dad. I'm there. You got it. So a very off color cartoon, right? And the darken and when the first thing came on like that, oh my god, we got the wrong show on. So they run over and put another cartoon on. And I thought of myself, you know, yeah, if you're doing a game you know, for kids, make sure the graphic design everything is appropriate. You're doing an adult game. Okay, that's a little different story. I thought the difference between like Apple's Apple's Jr. and cards against humanity. So there's a big gap there and I think it's important to be aware of who the target audience is, not just whether it's kids or adults, but who you're going for and is that design appropriate? Right. And again, tying it all back to the theme, tying it back to the experience, should it be more cartoonish? Should it be realistic? Should it be impressionistic? You know, there's a lot of different ways that you can go and you want to try to evoke the theme. And a lot of times that's going to be the hands of the artist and the publisher, but even as a designer, I think you can, you know, kind of kind of nudge it in certain directions or at least look at a couple of different concepts and say, this is kind of the overall look and design and ideas that we're that we're trying to go for. Absolutely. Remember the early, a Glowy to Rome with the cartoon, Arna, you know, the cartoon art that turned a lot of people off. You know, other people love it, but that was sort of, you know, going out of the box and saying, you know, let's try something really different. It certainly got the game noticed. And I find in my games lately, especially games that have a lot of narrative and stuff, there's so many ways to go. And it, you like, if you're going to add a little humor in the game, well, that's going to affect how the graphics look. And if you want to stay sort of in a dark place, you're going to have to do it more seriously. So, the lot, the lot to consider when you get to this part of the design. Yeah. And questions 10 and 11, which are kind of related. So I'll throw them both out here, but 10 is, are your fonts easily readable and is text inappropriate size? And 11 is, is the iconography clear? They are related. But I'll tell you, boy, number 10, does this drive you crazy? Like it drives me crazy? Oh my god. If I can't read, what's on the card? How am I going to play the game? And if I'm just training to do that, how am I focused on the gameplay to begin with? I mean, and there are some well-known games that are guilty of this, and hopefully they've heard enough from their audience to get that size appropriate. Now, I'm not saying that just because I'm older, because I've been doing this a long time. And in the early days of trading card games, which I was involved in, that was a big thing, was how small can we go? And because on some magic gathering cards, you know, so much text. And they found you can go pretty small, but I don't think you want to live there. Yeah, I try to stay to 12 point on cards. I think you can probably go down to nine. But I think anything smaller than that, you're really pushing it. You're pushing it, but I will tell you, when I do the Pokemon Precaus Dr. Dex, I do the work on those every three months to get the proper information on the playtest cards. I have to go to six. Really? And six is small. But when it has, when it's a white label, and it's a dark print, I can do okay with that. Is that for product for the actual cards that go out in the field? Have six pointer? Are you saying that's just for playtest purposes? Oh, well, no, look at some Pokemon cards. It's the ones that have a lot of information on them. And I don't, I couldn't tell you exactly what the point size is, but I'm putting that same information in a space that's about the same size on my playtest card. So I know it's small. Maybe it's eight. Maybe it's eight. It might be around there. But when you get down to that small, oh, man, it's just really difficult. It's really difficult. Yes. And if you're going that small, then please put it on a white background. Oh, yes. Yeah. And it's okay to have texture background cards sometimes. But you want to use it with the larger text and make sure that the background is reasonably solid and not have a lot of patterns. I've seen some cards sometimes where they have these crazy textures and that makes it even harder. And similarly, I've seen people that try to use these thematic fonts. Yes. And if you can't read them, you can read them. The card and that's fine. But once you're starting to get to the text, make sure it's a standard font, either where there's a reference on serif, whatever you like, but at least make sure that it's really readable. And remember that when a game goes to print, and of course you're going to, well, get samples, right? Because it's one at actual size. Yes. Because especially-- A lot of games where I look at these cards on the computer screen, and they're fantastic. And then you print them out and they're like, oh, that's fantastic. And when you have colors in the background, especially-- I've seen this-- the card will look fine when it goes to the printer. And then when it comes back, because the color is never exactly the same in certain situations, the printer just-- it's a color that's close, but whatever, you can't see the text because the color is swallowed it up. So you just got to be really careful when you're getting fancy with your printing stuff, whether it's fons or colors. And keep, go easy on all of us so we can read how wonderful the game plays and what to do. It'll be good. Right. Right. And one game that I-- the gameplay, I really enjoy, but I think we've talked about this in the past, is-- Tides of time. Yes. I think is the text on those cards is very poorly designed to be easy to read. And especially for first-time players, there's these great big, giant cards with beautiful lush artwork on them, and the text is basically unreadable. It can be lost. And Imperial Settlers has the issue too, and from a portal games that Ignacy, along with his rulebooks, is addressing this kind of thing. Is this game is so good to play? And so people really focus on, well, this makes it hard. I mean, give us a text size we like. So, you know, he's certainly listening and making the adjustments. But yeah, you got to be able to read what's on the card. Yep. And just a quick funny story that I just overheard with Ignacy saying on the board games insider podcast, which is fun, that he had some folks out at Gamma, Gamma Trade Show, out in Las Vegas. And it was-- they made a map of their new game. I think it's called Crazy Cars. Crazy Cars is good. Jeff Green's car is going to be fun. Yes, I'm looking forward to that. Oh, yes. And but the map they brought accidentally, the guy who printed it, they had him print a prototype, and he printed it six feet across. It was some sort of miscommunication. I guess. So they go on, you know, they were on the board game geek livestream and the dice tower livestream, and he's just bringing out this gigantic board and saying, this is not the actual size of the board. It's actually bigger. So yeah, so you want to try to print stuff out and you know, so you can review it at the actual size. Yep. And the next one is iconography clear. Icons get used all the time now for many reasons. Part of it is, you know, language independence, part of a Z's of play. Certainly I think it's great for types of a card, a type of an action. You know, you don't have to explain, well, it's going to be done once a turn. maybe I have a little lighting bowler or a one time use card versus a permanent those kind of things, but you kind of make sure that they can be seen and they can be recognized easily right and It's really important to make sure they're distinctive from each other. Oh, yes. Yes. Like which one is that? Is that the player? We're a player right so you know and even if you have the same icon you can do color I think like guild hall does a really good job with that. Oh, it does make a house with there's a white house and a black house And I think the white house is just you in the black houses the other players. Yeah, vice versa But you know conventions like that that make it really clear, you know, just at a glance what you're looking at So I think it's important to like line all of your icons up next to each other and make sure it's really simple for people to see what's going on Do you think about language independence from most of your designs or not? I? Try to do it wherever possible I tend to have a lot of cards with special abilities and stuff like that So I I mean wherever possible I will try to make it language independent and I guess we'll jump ahead to question number 14 and see for this and I'll go back. Oh, okay. No, no, that's okay We can I was just thinking in the Like would you use a lot of icons for that region? I will yeah, I will but I don't it's not like a design goal Mm-hmm. It's I tends to be more fortuitous. Yes, I can do it. I will do it But I don't drive myself crazy trying to do it. Yeah, I don't I don't ever think that way at the end of the thing We'll talk about it more when we talk about different languages, but I'm trying to make a good game and Experience and I figure if the game is good enough, you know, they'll print it in different language even if they have to Change the language on some cards or something so anyway Is there ambiguity in your graphics like map adjacency car text or other items now? I have you know, I've gotten I'm trying to grow up here after so many games to that design But I'm trying to get into the world of of boards and maps and stuff a little bit I've a tile-lane game with Dragon Island for the first time and I think the next one after that actually is going to have a full board so These are part of the the problems, right? I mean map adjacency. What do you mean by that Jeff? Is that like this is actually comes from Just if you've got areas on a map Make sure that it's it's totally clear which areas are adjacent to which areas They need at a point then make sure it meets I kind of put this on here. There's a story that kind of struck me we I was talking with Mike Gray From Hasbro who designed the fantastic fortress America And one of the issues that they had with that game is They just turned their playtest maps and everything over to the graphics department and the graphics department made the maps and the maps came out and when the maps came out That they're these landing areas that the United States is being invaded from three sides and and that the oceans are divided up into these zones that you Land from and because the artists got cute with the graphics It wasn't totally clear which landing zones were adjacent to which Not good ocean spaces and they actually had to correct it in a second edition and they had to you know There was all kinds of problems and you know This was in the 80s when it wasn't so easy to get information to people about what things were so You know he learned from that experience that after it goes to the artist you gotta Check it again and look at all of that with a fine tooth comb to make sure that it's really clear you know that there's not a tiny little you know Extra piece of a space that's hanging over because the artist wanted to make a squiggly line instead of a straight line And that's throwing things off so you got to be very meticulous and detailed and and really look over all of those assets after the artist has completed them you know I'm involved in a pandemic legacy and I have played pandemic a lot, but I think this is I think I'm not an expert But I think it's just in the legacy board where they make different areas. Okay, you have the countries but Some of and I'm not gonna spoil anything, but there are different They're they're not as clear. That's what I'm saying after look carefully And but it is clear when you focus on the line, but things get divided up in like two different ways now in that game and That you know that's an example of something you've really got to do carefully because you don't want to To upset the different countries where the different plagues go, but you've got this other thing happening And you've got to make sure that's also clear. It's not so easy. Yep, and make sure you double proofread all the card text Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just found a card that I had read 30 times from the artist Same card, you know, and he was just changing the art and I kept you know every time I reviewed it I just now found an error that's been in there forever Which is the that the word on was in there twice it said like put the card on on the board Those kind of things can be tough and I tell you can have multiple proofreaders too and things can still be missed I mean there's one I mean, I'm pretty proud of this and all the baseball highlights cards there were a lot of them There but then I thought I had it perfect. I went over other people in the company went over We went over everything of fine tooth comb. I thought we were there But there's one card that did not have a little pH simple which a symbol P in an h and y to the bottom middle which is supposed to go on certain cards that they can be used to pinch it for and The card, you know, there's a simple criteria for who gets that so I've done so many times I went through to check that but one got through so it's been fixed in a reprint but um, you know Do you just try it's very hard to get everything? Yep Okay, um Question number 13 are the graphics color blind friendly This will become a big issue in the last few years I think I mean it's something you really do want to try to do right? Yeah, um, you know, it's it's part of your audience and you know, we even have someone in our game group who is Color blind and you know, so I think maybe I'm more sensitive too because of that It was not something that I really thought about um, which is not a good Reflection on me, but it just wasn't on my radar till I started playing with gamers that had uh both color blind issues as well as just in general visual impairment issues and when you look at font sizes and stuff like that too But yeah, you got to look at are there other ways we can distinguish things rather than just using color and if I have to use color There are other things I can put thicker outlines or patterns or you know, just just other attributes that you can put in So you're not strictly relying on color to tell that this is a red card and this is a blue card and I think companies every sponsored it is pretty well I'm trying to remember was the very first ticket to ride released did that have the symbols on the cards to it may have Yeah, that did that did have the symbols because that actually was off of Based on airlines. Oh right, right, they didn't realize and airlines had the symbols. Yes, which is a great idea because that game is also yeah Necessary in airlines because the colors were also freaking close Even me who's not color blind was like is I read is it orange is this blue is this dark blue is it like green? I don't know what this is well You're you know if you're in certain light I find the lighting of the table can make a big difference And I know the person that you were you know that we play with and I played with who has that issue my father was color blind so I remember in Card games especially that was everything to him. He had to have the suit symbol or he had had something That would tell him upfront and it's only certain colors, but it's it's it's widespread and as gamers, you know We're trying to do this appeal. There's no excuse for not doing that right and there's tools now on the internet that you can upload graphics And it will show you what they look like to different Different versions of color blindness. So that's also useful to to try if you have any questions about whether someone's gonna work or not Okay, and the final question of the entire checklist all three parts Wow, we got there is the design friendly for printing in different languages And you talked about this a little bit and this was something also that before I really started getting involved in Working with printer the publishers and and the production houses hadn't really thought about But if you think that the game is going to be printed in different languages there are things that you can do to make it Easier to work with And we actually ran into that roadblock with space cadets um we did um And we you know we we came always space cadets and it was fairly popular and a lot of other printers wanted to do it Asma day picked it up to reprint in Europe and when they kind of got together with ludifact who had printed the game Because most of our stuff was like white text on black backgrounds It was very very difficult for them to they couldn't just change a plate if you know in advance that there are certain areas of the cards that you're going to be changing To different languages or things like that there's ways that you can create the printing plates To make it really really easy to do Um like if it's if it's just if it's white background with black text then they can just take the black text and put that on a different Plate and then only that plate needs to change and everything else can stay the same So uh there was a lot of additional cost and time it was required to internationalize space cadets because that wasn't something that was Considered during that initial phase of production when we're repairing the english language version Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because it's not i mean i think most people think of the fact is there text in the card that has to change to a different language Or is it icons and you could just print the same game and just change the rulebook now of course that's the That's the cheapest way to do it uh that's because that's sort of the idea way and and if you have a game that is mostly icons It probably makes sense to try to go the whole distance and Only have maybe a player aid and a rulebook to worry about in in text But of course, I wasn't thinking about this in in the early days of my designing in the 90s So with training card games they're all text right so and of course if you know imagine the gathering and Pokemon have been popular enough to be printed in so many different languages. And there's color issues in both of them. But it was worth it. It's worth it for the printers to just go the home of Gillan and do it. My Mystery Rummy series has about four or five languages now, not all of them, but certainly Jack the Ripper and a couple others are in several languages. And that's a lot of text. But there, US Games knows about this stuff when they printed it because they do tarot cards and they're working with foreign printers all the time. So they actually made, as you were saying, they made some configuration where it would be very easy to just switch the plate and do it. So if you're handling, if you're in charge of doing Kickstarter or whatever and you're handling the printing part of it and you think you may want to internationalize and you have to do different languages, then absolutely. You should talk to your printer about that and get there suggestions on how to redesign things in a way to make that easier. Now with Dragon Island, I did get to the point, took a long time, but I've got no text on the tiles. Oh, excellent. So, and now, of course, the only problem is will it ever be worth putting another language? That's what we're going to wait to see, right? But at least it's prepared. So if that happens, they can do it. But you've got to have good rules, play arrays, all the rest of the stuff and icons, lots of icons to be able to do that. Okay. So that brings to a conclusion the checklist. So before we get into the lightning round here, the full checklist is being hosted by our friends over at Cardboard Edison, which in general are a great resource for game design tips and techniques. So please go over there and it's under the featured content link on the top. And also we've posting a link to it on the guild over on board game geek. Now, where can people offer new things? Because I have a feeling we didn't get to every single thing that would be important on these little things. Please jump on the guild and make other suggestions for additional items and come or just send us emails. I'm sure that we will be updating this over time. There's a lot of different things to consider. We tried to highlight what we felt were some of the top things that we think you worry about, but I'm sure that other people are different perspectives. So we are very anxious for people to participate in this. We kind of see this as a living document that will be updated over time. And maybe at some point it's going to be 100 percent. You have to have a video. And that's going to be added to the checklist. Make sure you've got a video and make sure that it covers x, y and z. So definitely something that we, in a vision, is going to be changing and growing and improving as time goes by. And there's one thing I just thought of. I don't know that we mentioned it specifically, but I hear a lot these days. That's the footprint of the game. How much space on the table it takes? That's a graphic design sort of issue in the end. So something you need to be aware of as you're designing. Yep. And that all relates to, again, the experience as an epic game. Where is it going to be played? What type of people are going to be playing it? What type of environments is going to be in stuff like that? So absolutely. Well, time once again for another ludological lightning round and tonight's topic of the graphic and production side of game design. We're going to incorporate here. So question number one, Jeff. What is the most expensive game you have ever bought and we don't include expansions or boosters? Well, I'm going to give you two. The actual correct answer is one time when I was in Tokyo on a business trip, I asked our agent if we could go visit. I wanted to look for a nice ghost go set, the originally Chinese game that's played over in Asia. And he actually found a guy that was one of the only guy that was hand crafting go sets in his workshop in this little apartment in Tokyo. And so I spent a nice afternoon there meeting with him, just a private meeting there and he showed me they start with shells, actual seashells. And he's got a punch and we punched out the stones and polished the stones and stuff like that and actually ended up investing in one of his hand made sets, which was it was quite expensive, but I really treasure it. And it was it was into the fort figures. So I'll say that. Wow. Do you actually do actually play go? I play a facsimile game. I do play when I can't. I really enjoy it. I have a go app on my phone and I do occasionally play on the set. We have it in the living room on a tatami mat. So I enjoy playing on that set. So that's the most expensive thing that I bought in terms of a game, but that's more like a work of art in a way. In terms of regular board games, recently I picked up the mega civilization game, the 18 player civilization game, which I think was like $250 or $200 or $200 something like that. Wow. Wow. I actually knew about that. But that was my experience of yeah. That's a lot. That's a big footprint too, isn't it talking about spreading the game out and playing out. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, I mean, as an old time war game where I mean, we used to have you rope and stuff like that where we take over entire gymnasiums. So stuff spread all over the floor. So that's, you know, that doesn't scare me. Well, you're certainly going to beat me on price, but the most expensive game I've ever bought is the Sedra Zikatan 10th anniversary 3D edition. Oh, okay. That's the one in the treasure chest. Yes. 180. Cool. I got it for 180. I think it was listed more than that, but I remember getting it for 180 and really fun to play with and very beautifully put together. And I also got the 15th, but that wasn't. That was a much more normal sort of wood set. The one I came closest to, I would, unfortunately, I was at a GenCon. So there was no way I was getting this home unless I paid an extreme amount for shipping. Is the Tacky Noco Giant Edition? I was so attracted to it because it's a great game. I love the game and the Panda in that game is so, so big and good, but it's three, it was $300. And I thought to myself, yeah, I don't know what I would have had to pay to ship it, but I controlled myself. I didn't do that one. But here we are. We both spent well over $100. You over $200 for a game. So I guess this says something about how highly you're going to have to go. Well, you'll be happy to know. I'm actually looking here just real quickly on BGG and eBay and that's the list of Katan 10th anniversary edition. People are trying. It's being sold on Amazon for $1,400. Whoa. Suggested retails. I don't feel like buying it from that. The minimum price is on eBay at it's like 950. There's a few people on BGG who are selling copies that are opened for $600 and up. Wow. So, I'm not selling it. I love the game still. And I'm just not selling it. But that said, just need to know. So you limit the print run. I guess they limited the run on that. And this is what can happen over time. So, so it's like an investment. Okay. Question number two. Is the game you love to play because of the components as well as the gameplay? So not just the nicest components, but also kind of has gameplay that supports that. Well, I'm not playing a game if it just has pretty components and I was no fun to play. But for me, Memor 44 is the complete package. I mean, when I was a kid, I used to play with toy soldiers and stuff. I love setting that board up. Seeing it all set up, moving the soldiers and the tanks around. That's the fun it was a kid. And I love the game system. So for me, that's one that hit it out of the park with components and gameplay. And you can include the other games Battle Cry. I think it's great to and all the games in that series. That hits my sweet spot and I love it. Yeah. For me, I'm also going to kind of go with the minis base game. I'm going to go with the war machine, the private tier press game. This kind of a pure minis game. So you set up scenery and the models are really neat. And the gameplay is really one of the best of the miniatures games. So for me, it would be war machines, war machine or hordes. If you're going to go with a board game, I threw out a bonus pick, is the game Medina? Oh, that's a lovely, just gorgeous looking game when it's all put together. You're building up the city and it's all chunky wooden pieces. So that's really nice. Yes, it is. You're right. Question number three, name a game that has a great rule book. Well, it depends on the rule books. It's really weird. So it's very difficult to say for me what a great rule book is. But one that I would say is a great rule book for all of its problems is Advanced Squad Leader, as an example. Well, listen, it's better. It's better pages long. But it needs to be. It's incomprehensible. But if you're into the game, it's perfectly designed for the people that are playing that game. Oh, it is. Talk about referencing. So, but in terms of more traditional games, I think the Dominion rules, they did a really good job with. It's a pretty simple concept. But in terms of introducing the new concept of deck building and just making the game flow smoothly, I think they did a nice job with that. Yeah, I agree. Now, for me, there's one because I'm getting into playing it just these days. And that's the new addition of through the ages, because here is a complex game. And what they did in this new addition of it, which just changed fair number rules, is they have a handbook for your first game, but it really lays out in very simple step-by-step how to get play in the game. And then they have what's called a Code of Laws, which is that Jeff has said, this is the reference, but it has all the complete rules in it. It's very easy to find stuff. I love it because it gets you into it quickly and yet you have an easy way to reference things. And as good as that rule book is good, the first edition rule book was bad. Yes. It's on the opposite end of the spectrum. Yes, well I didn't play the first edition much and that was why. And also there was certain things in the game I just couldn't get my head around and I'm sure the explanations and stuff were a part of that. So a big improvement for that. Which brings us to question number four of naming a game that needs a better rule book. Oh boy, does this need a better rule book and it's a great game. You know, I guess a bad game does a particularly need a better rule book. I mean, if you just not, it's, it isn't a game where it's on the shelf. Right. But Robinson Crusoe, which is such a beautiful, wonderful game from Portal Games, everybody loves it. I did try to learn this from the rule book and I couldn't get to square one. I, I knew nothing. And I've done a lot of games. I play a lot of games, not that I'm, I play the most complicated games, but I should have it up and figure it out. So the new edition is coming out later this year and Ignaci has promised it's a much improved rule book and he admits we had to do a lot better on the rule books because you know, Robinson Crusoe is very detailed and, but a wonderful experience so people tell me. So I'm looking forward to playing it when it comes out. Yeah. I'm going to kind of duck this one. There's so many games that have issues with the rules. It's, it's incredible. I mean, I just as a joke, I was on the flip the table podcast and we played the Hello Kitty Best Friends game, which is one page of rules for a, you spin the spinner and you move to a different colored space and we found like two or three rules questions in the two programs of rules. Oh, well, it's just unbelievable, but it just underscores how challenging it is to really write clear and unambiguous rules. I'm not going to say the name of the game. It just came out. I got a copy and it's a very small, simple game and I was looking forward to playing. I opened it up and nowhere in the rules do they tell you what a certain card is. They said you must start the game with this card, but in their explanation of every card in the deck, there is no explanation of that card. So it's as far as I can tell, I can't start because I just don't know what a play was. So that was great. And question number five, your favorite arts in a game. We were talking graphics and everything. So let's hear a game that really did it right. Well, I mean, my go to for this question and it's kind of a cop out his Dixit. I think that the art is really delightful. That is not a cop out, not a cop out. It is amazing art. But I'm going to throw in a bonus. I would like to check it out. I've only seen it from a distance. Is the gallerist? I have not had a chance to play that one yet, but I've heard very good things about the art style as well as the gameplay on that one. Yeah, I played a little bit. The art style is great. The board is done well. You know, Fatal's games need a little, are complex. So the boards have to be done in that sort of intuitive way where you can have a chance of finding where he's supposed to do something because there's, you know, like his games, there's seven or eight things going on at one time. But yeah, they have some beautiful art in that. And it's very, and it's interesting because gallerist dovetails with my pick because it's from the same company. And my pick is Fantastica, the outseeker game. They're both from Eagle Griffin and boy, they go for quality of components and graphics. And what Fantastica does, I believe, is something the gallerist does too. Fantastica got a license from a museum and some of the cards are real art pieces that they're able to print on the cards. And then they, and that's for the character cards and stuff. And then they have wonderful original art to fill in the theme because it's a very unusual theme. This Fantastica place you're going where normal utilities like spoons and knives have forced become, you know, fantasy weapons and all this kind of stuff. So they do a nice job in that. And I, you know, the same kind of thing from gallerist, when you pay attention to how the game looks and add some special, I think you get rewarded for it. Good stuff. Okay. Question number six, what do you think the max number of different icons should be in a game? Oh, boy. You know, I thought about this question a lot when I'm designing and then you place something like race for the galaxy and you say, ah, now there's no limit. I mean, I think ten. I can have ten different icons and figure it out. I do think that, you know, the icons in that game are an obstacle for some. So you do have to understand that you're asking players to take a little longer trip on the learning curve possibly. But if in the end it aids you because it really makes gameplay smoother and you're putting all the, all the things you'd have to put on every card and some text, you're getting that into a clear icon. I think it's probably worth it. But I used to think there were limits. It's interesting three or so, but I don't know after, after playing races of other games and trying it myself, if they're intuitive, they're easy to explain. I'm going to say ten. Yeah, I put down seven to ten as well. So I'm kind of in that same range as you. I think that once you start getting, you know, 15, 20 different icons, it becomes much, much tougher to remember everything that's going on. Yes, and I've seen games with that many and I just sort of say, nope, it's not, I'm just not going to go there. I'm not going to do that. And our final question, it's always the fun one. Question number seven. And we're going to go into the art world a little bit. Who is your favorite visual artist? I'm talking about painters, sculptors, you know, free form art, but art that you're going to look at. You know, it was a very tough one for me. I like so many. I kind of ended up with a pick that surprised me a little bit. Personally, it was a, called, or Alexander called her, who makes the giant 3D sculptures and mobiles and things like that. I just like the kind of kinetic nature of the stuff that he does. That's interesting. You go for the sculptor. Yes, I love art. I mean, I've had for a long time. And it's funny because I've really tried hard to be open to more modern art and stuff. But, and I am to some artists. But if you're asking me what my favorite is, and it has been from a kid, the first time I went to a museum and saw anything by Claude Monet, the father of the French impression is, and there's something about the way those colors blend and the beauty, the pastel nature of those pictures. I just love that. You're not going to go too far wrong with Monet. I guess you can't, right? I guess that's true. Hey, we're adding some culture to the show, Jeff. That's very exciting. Yes. Anyway, so that's our checklist. So again, please go check those out on Carbord Edison as well as on the Lodology Guild. And before we go, I would be remiss, Mike, if I didn't congratulate you, the board game geek awards were announced. Oh, yes. I just saw that. You were the runner up. Baseball highlights 2045 was one of the runner-ups in two-player game as well as solo game. You're right. So that's very exciting. So congratulations on that. That's great. I did not expect that. It's kind of a niche game I thought, but it's really good. And congratulations to all the winners and all the people that got listed, even nominated. It's really a fun thing to have happen. And it's always nice to think somebody out there likes what you're doing. So that's good. Yes. And before we go, we would like to thank our benefactors, Andreas Irland, Rick Holtrup, and William Nichols. Thank you guys for supporting the show. And if you would like to help show your support as well, please go to patreon.com/Lodology or you can donate through the PayPal link on our website at ludology.net. So that'll wrap it up for this show. We will back in two weeks. We got a really exciting and interesting guest and I think you guys are going to enjoy. So stay tuned for that. Yes, we will see you next time. Thanks for listening. Ludology is made possible by the support and donations of listeners like you. We encourage you to visit us at ludology.net to get involved in a continuing discussion on today's topic. Ludology is a member of the Dice Tower Network, the premier board game media network. Explore all the shows we have to offer at dicetowernetwork.com. Until next time, keep thinking, keep learning, and keep playing. [Music]