Episode 236 - KublaCOOL

Intro: 0:00

Announcements: 0:48

Recent Games: 3:04

KublaCon Recap: 14:23

KublaCon Recap (without kids): 25:07

Outro: 30:51

Bloopers: 31:46

Games discussed this episode:

Sherlock: The Game is Afoot: 3:04

EXIT: The Game - Family: 2 Escape Adventures: 8:50

Magic Mountain: 17:30

Peek-a-Mouse: 21:12

I Ain't Got Time For That: 25:49

WarioWare: 26:44

Nimalia: 28:32

Murder at the Atelier: 28:49

People/groups mentioned:

Andrew DiLullo

Willie from Boardgames and Blank

My song parody channel (will have One Short Day music video)

Support us directly on Ko-Fi or shop on our merch store or our Amazon Storefront!

Listen to us: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and/or YouTube.

Follow us: BlueSky, X, Instagram, and Facebook

Chat with us: BGG Guild and Discord

This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Use the code "BLITZ10" to get 10% off your entire cart.

[0:06] Crystal: Hello and welcome to episode 236 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes a 6-yr-old to choose which toy they want to spend their tickets on at an arcade prize redemption counter. Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we’re talking about KublaCon! First, we discuss a couple games we’ve played recently, Sherlock: The Game is Afoot and Exit: The Game - Family. Then, we talk about Ambie’s family’s experience at this year’s KublaCon. And now, here are your hosts…

Ambie: Ambie

Crystal: and Crystal, with special guests

Dracula: Kevin the Vampire

Elphaba: And Elphaba. I mean Roy.

[0:48] Crystal: One quick announcement before we hop into the main episode and that is that this episode is our ninth anniversary of the podcast. Yay,

Ambie: Yay, woo-hoo, happy anniversary.

Crystal:Happy anniversary, Ambie.

Dracula: Happy anniversary.

Crystal: This is one of those things that my brain always is weird about because your ninth anniversary means you've already been doing the thing for nine years. So we are entering the 10th year of the podcast right now, which is bananas. I mean, obviously we had hopes when we started this podcast that it would turn into something, whatever that was. But if you had asked, like, do you think you'll be still doing this podcast with people who are technically kind of strangers to you right now in 10 years or nine years, do you think you'll still be doing it? I would probably have said no just because of the way life works.

Ambie: Yeah, that's a long time.

Crystal: I don't stick with anything that long, Ambie.

Crystal: That's what I was thinking, like, all my jobs were like two or three years and school is five or six years in elementary school and that's the longest you're at one school.

Crystal: Yeah, I mean, I got married to my ex-husband in 2014 and then we launched the podcast in 2016. So I was barely married to my ex-husband when we started this, essentially. And now he is so far in the rearview window that I can't see him anymore. So, oh, life is funny like that. And I am, of all the things to have stick around, I'm glad that this podcast has been one of them.

So, I thank you to our listeners, those of you who have been around for a short while or the long haul. I know there are some of you out there who are listening right now who have been with us since literally the beginning and I cannot express how meaningful that is to us. We have changed as humans and as board gamers, I would say in a number of different ways over the past nine years. And hopefully you all have grown with us and enjoyed the changes that we've gone through during that time period.

Ambie: Yep.

[3:04] Ambie: Recently, I got a review copy of Sherlock: The Game is Afoot. This is published by Indie Boards & Cards, designed by Jason Hager and Darren Reckner.

Crystal: I like the title. That's nice.

Ambie: Yeah. This is a deduction game for two to five players. It says 45 minutes. So, the way the game works is it's like a basic deduction game, kind of like Clue. Everyone gets a notepad, you have a board that you're moving around on. So, on your turn, you can move a space on the board if you want to, but the board is like different nodes connected, so it's not like a grid board or anything. And then there's tokens that appear on different spots on the board. So, the deck of cards that you're trying to get, there's cards 2 through ace kind of. I think it is exactly 2 through ace. But it's not a playing deck, it's just not a suit, it's just like the numbers 2 through ace and those are the cards. And so, like, you'll have a hand of two or three cards or something, and then there's one card that you're trying to guess, and there are some cards that no one has. So, on your turn, you move a space on the board if you want to, or you can stay where you are, and then there's a token that comes out, and then the tokens have those same numbers, and the spaces on the board are also the same numbers, 2 through ace. And so, the tokens allow you to do a special power on that space. So, you can either do a special power on a space that has a token if you're on that space, or you can ask someone a question. And the questions you ask can be like any yes or no question. It can be a complex question like, "Do you have an even number, or do you have a face card or something?" Like, you can not even string together a bunch of stuff. But, like, everyone hears the question and the answer, and you're asking one person, "Okay, do you have a 2, 4, or 6?" or whatever. And then, everyone takes notes. They have these little notepads. It does not come with player shields. It feels like it needs player shields to, like, cover up the notepads, so when you're writing down, you can cover up what other people see. So, we ended up using, like, the box lid, and then a couple of other game boxes in those lids. But, like, I think it would be nice to have player shields.

Crystal: Yeah, it feels like in a game where you need to keep information hidden, like, even for people who don't want to cheat, sometimes you will literally just, like, look over and see something, and you don't want to do that.

Ambie: Yeah, but, yeah, basically, you're asking questions, and then for the special action with the token on a numbered space, if you're on, like, a number 2, you can use the special action to ask someone specifically, "Do you have the 2?" And if they do, then they put it face up, everyone sees that they have it, and then you, the person who asks, gets to draw a new card from the deck. So, there's a deck, no one has those cards yet, and so you get more information that way. For the face cards, they have, like, different abilities on those tokens. One of them is, like, you get to ask three questions or something. So, you can do those special abilities if you're on that space on your turn, and there's a token there. So, when I was playing, like, the tokens come out randomly. So, it seemed kind of, like, random, being able to do the ability, because, like, if you're right next to it, then you can just move there and do it on your turn if that token just comes out. But, like, if you're across the board, and then the token comes out across the board, and then, like, you can't do it, so just whoever was next to the token gets lucky and was able to do that. And, like, that's what gets people more cards. So, like, in our game, one person got pretty lucky and was able to get, like, four cards, and everyone else got nothing.

Crystal: Oh, wow.

Ambie: And so, yeah, I didn't really like that. The concept of being able to ask complex questions also, I thought was interesting, but in practice, it didn't work that well for us, because, first of all, it's hard to take notes on complex questions. Like, you have, like, a little note sheet that's not very big. It's, like, smaller than an index card. And then, like, how are you supposed to take notes on complex questions if they have a lot of parts? And then, also, like, being able to answer it, you would have to answer truthfully. And so, like, if someone messes up, it's a lot easier to mess up if it's, like, a something or something and a complex thing than if, like, just do you have a two or something? So, in our game, Toby just ended up asking, like, "Do you have a 2 or a 4 or a 6?" And then the next question, "OK, do you have a 4 or a 6?" And so we're like, "OK."

Crystal: I think I would like to retract my prior statement about liking the name of the game, because the name of the game is far more interesting than what you've described. What is Sherlock about this at all?

Ambie: Oh, yeah, the theme isn't that... Yeah, like, there are player ability cards that you can play as an advanced variant, so there's variant where each person can get a player. And so, like, there's a Sherlock player and there's a Moriarty player where, like, you can lie once or something. We didn't play with those. And that seemed like it would make it even more complicated, and I don't know how you would do note-taking for that. But I wanted to like this game, but I didn't. Because, like, I like deduction games, and so... But then I keep saying I like deduction games and then getting disappointed by deduction games. Like, maybe I don't like that.

Crystal: I mean... I think that's a genre that's hard to get right. You know, it's not... Especially because deduction... A, everybody's brains works differently, and then each game has a difficulty level. What, you know, it's hard to quantify what those really are, but to make a game accessible or approachable for a wide amount of people, it usually needs to be easier mechanically. But then it feels like from what you're describing, they've added in complexity in other ways that are just kind of bogging down the game, maybe.

Ambie: Yeah, the complex questions, that would be group-dependent. So, like, you don't have to ask complex questions. You can ask whatever you want, it's as though... Yeah, and then, like, I guess moving around the board, that makes it so that it's not just pure deduction, but I prefer pure deduction, so that's why. It's not for me.

Crystal: Yeah, it's hard to make a good deduction game nowadays, so...

Ambie: Yeah, but yeah, that was Sherlock: The Game is Afoot.

[8:50] Crystal: All right. Well, the game I am talking about today, I recently got to play with my sister and my nephew. So, shout out to them, my sister Ashley and my nephew Leo. I actually gifted Leo for his sixth birthday some escape room games made for kids and families. And while I was visiting recently, I got to play EXIT: The Game - Family:2 Escape Adventures. That's the full title. It's a little bit much.

Ambie: I haven't played this one, so I'm excited.

Crystal: Yeah, so EXIT: The Game - Family comes with a couple of different adventures in the box. It is not the small box EXITs, like you would expect from the normal series. It is a larger box. It says it's made for ages eight and up, and for two to four players, although obviously the player count could be fudged pretty much however you want on this one. The one that we played specifically was The Mystery at Mean Stone Manor, which is an adventure about animals have been disappearing all over town, and so you are part of the heroes, and the heroes are gonna try and solve the mystery and figure out where all the missing animals have been. Obviously I'm not gonna get into a lot of the details for spoiler reasons, but I wanna go over kind of how EXIT: The Game - Family operates in comparison to regular Exit games, because we've discussed those a lot.

Similar to regular Exit games, there is a puzzle wheel that you utilize when solving puzzles. It is a relatively simple one compared to some of the other Exit games. It's based on color on the outside of the wheel, and then there's numbers on the different rings, and then they reveal symbols, and the symbols are all different shapes, triangles, squares, circles, things like that. So all of the parts of the wheel are easy to recognize for a kid. So even though this is a family themed adventure, a kid could operate the wheel. Then what's neat about the symbols that you get is at the beginning of the game, you lay out a number of the adventure cards on the table, and those all have three symbols at the top of them, and those are how you move forward when you solve puzzles. Is each puzzle in the game is related to a specific color, and those are the colors on the outside of the wheel, and you know which puzzle you're solving. Like you know the cards are purple, this is the purple puzzle, and then when you input the thing on the wheel, it will tell you which color or which adventure card to go to next based on which symbols show up if you get it right. The back of the wheel shows you an X if you get it wrong, and it shows you the color of the puzzle you're working on if you get it right. So it's a little simpler and more clear than regular exit games, I think, in that regard, but it definitely is not something that I would say young kids or even like kids around my nephew's age would be able to do on their own. This is definitely one that I think having a parent or an old, like maybe a teenager involved with is probably essential because there is a little bit of going from okay, we solved this puzzle, which revealed that thing, so now we need that card, which gets us these other cards. So yeah, the puzzle wheel stuff is similar, the cards are labeled with letters, similarly to how other exit games are, and then the mechanics of the game and the puzzles themselves, like I said, I'm not gonna give away spoilers, but they are definitely geared toward things that a kid would be able to do. So there are things involving matching and simple math and being able to like spot things in a large picture, color matching, like the color wheel was involved at one point. So it's all things that my nephew could do with guidance. So basically when we would get to a puzzle, we would say, oh, okay, so you know, if it tells us that and we combine those two things, what does that mean? And he was able to answer pretty much every question, like he was able to solve the puzzle as long as we were presenting them to him, but I don't think he could have gotten this box out and played it on his own in any way, shape or form. He would have not been able to navigate the piles of cards and all of that stuff at his age. He just turned six a couple of months ago. But yeah, we had a lot of fun.

The one teeny spoiler I'll give is there's a karate cat in this game, and we thought that the karate cat was very cool. My nephew definitely enjoyed the karate cat. And yeah, when you finish the first adventure, it then unlocks the next one. So we didn't get a chance to play the second one, but it really was quite fun. Like we had a lot of, we had a good time doing it and it was really, really neat to see my nephew solving puzzles. He wanted to play this with me since I was the one who gifted it to him. And I'm really glad that I got to try it out. I think this one is pretty neat. Most of the puzzles in this game, even though it says that it's for ages eight plus, I would say that the solutions to the puzzles were definitely simple enough that my six year old nephew was like, oh, that's easy. So it's one of those things where if the kids wanted to play it by themselves, they would need to be a little older. But if you're playing it with a family, you could play with like five and six year olds easily with guidance, I think that it's, yeah. I know, you get this very, very nice.

Ambie: All right, I'm getting this.

Crystal: It was very cute. And yeah, I really enjoyed it quite a bit. And similarly to other Exit games, there are some little neat components in there as well, the final puzzle has the most unique component in the game. And it is pictured if you look at like the back of the box. So I guess it wouldn't be a spoiler to mention it, but it involves wooden pegs. And it's a clever little puzzle in how it is solved and then what it does. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm really glad I got to play this one.

Ambie: Cool, I'm excited to play it when I get it.

Crystal: I'm excited to hear your thoughts on it.

[14:23] Crystal: For our thematic segment today, we are talking about KublaCon and we have two very special guests with us. One of which is Dracula and the other was a Pharaoh and from ancient Egyptian Pharaoh. But now he's--

Elphaba: Elphaba.

Crystal: He's Elphaba. Okay, so we have Dracula and Elphaba here to tell us about their experience at KublaCon. Okay, so Dracula.

Dracula: Dracula!

Crystal: Yeah, so Dracula, what was your favorite part of KublaCon?

Dracula: Ah, I don't know, but I'll tell you one of my favorites. One of my favorites were getting the prizes, the young player room, the Kubla coins and the Mini Mongol March.

Crystal: Oh wow, so in the young player room, you won some prizes?

Dracula: And painting minis.

Crystal: Painting minis, that sounds like a lot of fun.

Dracula: The food.

Crystal: The food was good too?

Dracula: Oh, and have you been to KublaCon before?

Crystal: I've never been there before.

Dracula: And there's like a kid dressed up as like a crow or something. It was a old- a big kid, which can you show you what I mean by the owl?

Ambie: Another attendee was dressed up like had that like vulture death mask thing on. Oh yeah. And like a cowl on. So I guess that was one of his favorite parts of the convention.

Dracula: Do you know what she's talking about?

Crystal: I do know what you're talking about.

Dracula: Okay, so show me a picture of it.

Ambie: So KublaCon, I don't know if any other conventions that I've been to have this, but there's like a young player room. They have children's badges that are $50 versus like the hundred something for adults. And then there's a young player room where there's lots of kids games and kids activities and they had schedules events like specifically for kids. So there was like crafts and games that you could sign up for.

Dracula: And there'd be like a coloring contest.

Ambie: Oh yeah.

Dracula: Who has the best art?

Ambie: Yeah, so there was a coloring contest every day.

Dracula: Who had the best art would win.

Ambie: And so they had prizes Kubla coins that were like 3D printed little coins and that they had a little lanyard and the coins have a hole in it. So you put it in the lanyard so they don't get lost, but they could spend those coins for prizes. And so like they got a mask and a cape. Like they had different prizes and my kids ended up getting costume stuff.

Dracula: Oh, I can show you my cape.

Ambie: They had like some games as prizes or like little trinkets and stuff. Some 3D printed dragons and stuff costing different amounts. So the kids could do stuff like that.

Elphaba: Hello.

Crystal: Elphaba, what was your favorite part of Kubla Khan?

Elphaba: I have no idea. I have lots of favorite parts.

Crystal: Okay, tell me about all of your favorite parts.

Elphaba: But there's a lot. There might be too many.

Crystal: Well, then you name a few of them.

Elphaba: Okay, the kids room.

Crystal: That sounds like a good one.

Elphaba: And I even liked painting minis.

Crystal: Yeah, did you paint some minis?

Elphaba: And I liked playing the games.

Crystal: Which game was your favorite?

Elphaba: A witch game.

Crystal: A witch game.

Ambie: That game was called Magic Mountain. It actually won the Kinderspiel a while ago. It had marbles, right? And witches?

Elphaba: Yes, like me.

Crystal: I like games with marbles in them. Dracula, do you also like the witch game?

Dracula: Oh yeah, it has wizards too.

Crystal: It has wizards too?

Dracula: So this is one prize that I got from the young player room. And this-

Crystal: For our audio listeners, he's showing a very cool purple mask and a pirate vest.

Dracula: That I got from the young playroom.

Ambie: But for audio listeners, he's showing a pirate vest.

Crystal: Yeah, if anybody's not watching slash listening on YouTube, you should go over to YouTube because you're missing out on a lot of really awesome stuff right now. Oh my gosh, that vest is so cool. Wow.

Elphaba: And I will make a mask like that too.

Crystal: You're gonna make a mask like that too, Elphaba?

Elphaba: Yes, the vulture mask.

Crystal: Elphaba, I have a question.

Elphaba: What?

Crystal: If other kids were thinking about going to KublaCon next year, would you recommend it? Would you say that it's a good place for kids to go?

Elphaba: Yes.

Crystal: Yes?

Elphaba: Probably the kids room.

Crystal: The kids room is good for kids to go to at Kubla Khan? Why should kids go to Kubla Khan?

Elphaba: Why? Because it's a fun place.

Crystal: Well, that's a pretty good reason. Was it your first time going to Kubla Khan?

Elphaba & Dracula: No.

Crystal: No, but it was the first time you got an official badge, right?

Elphaba: Yeah, and a necklace.

Crystal: And a necklace, that's pretty cool. Is Dracula still nearby? I have a question for Dracula.

Dracula: Oh yes. The mask that I got the prize, it went with the cape that my mom was talking about.

Crystal: Whoa, that is a cool purple cape that you're showing.

Dracula: And then should I change my wings?

Crystal: I don't know, should you change your wings?

Dracula: Yeah, I'll change them to purple.

Crystal: Can you answer a question for me?

Dracula: Yeah.

Crystal: Okay, so if you had a choice, let's say you have two games that you can pick and one of them you solve a mystery and one of them you go on an adventure. Which one would you choose?

Dracula: Oh.

Elphaba: Do you like the same.

Crystal: You like them both the same? So you like solving mysteries and going on adventures?

Elphaba: How about solving a mystery when we're going on an adventure?

Crystal: Oh my gosh, that's a brilliant idea to combine them.

Dracula: Yeah.

Crystal: Okay, Dracula, if you could design your own board game, what would you put in it?

Dracula: Ah, I would put in like a cardboard 3D haunted house and there would be this vampire and then there would be this ball where you would try to roll it and then it would hit the vampire and then it would flip around.

Crystal: Whoa.

Dracula: And the other side would turn into a puddle.

Crystal: A puddle? Oh my gosh, that sounds really cool.

Elphaba: Like a melting witch.

Crystal: A melting witch?

Dracula: All of these other like Halloween figures and then you would have to like roll a dice and then whatever Halloween figure there is on there gets X-ed out, you get to roll the ball and then it hits it and then flips over into a puddle and if there's a white face that doesn't have anything you get to pick which thing to defeat.

Crystal: Wow, that sounds really cool.

Dracula: You could also flip a card over and it would show you where to go. You would go into the haunted house and there's this hole on the top of the haunted house and you would see where you go in the haunted house. Oh, you know, Peek-a-Mouse?

Crystal: Peek-a-Mouse, yeah, I know that game.

Dracula: So you know that house where the mouse is going?

Crystal: Yeah.

Dracula: Yeah, that's what the haunted house will be like.

Crystal: Oh, cool. Elphaba, I have another question for you.

Elphaba: What is it?

Crystal: I would like to know if you are planning to go back to KublaCon next year.

Dracula: Yes.

Elphaba: Yes. We are.

Crystal: Yes, you're both planning on going back to KublaCon? Do you want to go to other board game conventions in the future?

Elphaba: Yes, probably.

Crystal: Yeah, like maybe Dice Tower West in Las Vegas where I live?

Elphaba: I think we actually been there.

Crystal: You have been there and you can come again if you want to. I like it when you guys come to Dice Tower West because that means I get to see you in person. All right, so what do board game conventions not have that they should have? So if you went to KublaChan, what would you add to it to make it better?

Dracula: Well, I will tell you what I want. So what I want in the board game convention is a giant Dice Tower.

Crystal: Ooh, a giant Dice Tower would be really neat.

Elphaba: With dice.

Crystal: With big dice?

Dracula: And a giant treasure chest that guards that has all of the dice in it, but that's not what they have. I also want a statue of a Dice Tower and a statue of the whole convention.

Crystal: A statue of the whole convention. That sounds neat.

Dracula: Painted!

Crystal: What if the giant Dice Tower was also a big slide that you could ride down to?

Dracula: Yeah.

Crystal: Does that sound like fun?

Dracula: Yeah, I would want like a Dice Tower that looks like a playground and then we would put the dice in the top of the play structure and then it would fall down the slide.

Crystal: That sounds pretty cool.

Dracula: Yeah.

Elphaba: I have an idea.

Crystal: What's your idea?

Elphaba: Maybe a big playground for game piece.

Crystal: Oh my goodness. That sounds really cool. Well, is there anything else that you guys want to tell me about KublaCon?

Elphaba: We did the Mini Mongol March. You should go to KublaCon someday.

Crystal: You know what? I would love to come to KublaCon someday.

Dracula: What if we came also with you to the board game convention and all of your friends.

Crystal: Okay, so if I come to KublaCon, you guys will show me around.

Elphaba: Yes.

Crystal: Yes, okay, good. It'll be nice to have some tour guides that are familiar with the convention that can take me everywhere.

Ambie: Do you want to explain what the mini Mongol march was?

Dracula/Jack Sparrow: Now I am Captain Jack Sparrow.

Crystal: You're Captain Jack Sparrow now? Oh my gosh, you do look like a pirate.

Jack Sparrow: Let's talk about the Mini Mongol March. So, like, there's so many kids in like a, you know, a line, and then there's this like big giant guy who has like a big hammer, and you know, a helmet, I think.

Elphaba: He's called Kubla Con.

Crystal: Oh, he's called Kubla Con?

Jack Sparrow: And then everybody in the line would yell Kubla when Kubla Con raises his hammer, and then everybody else would yell Con when the people in the parade yelled Kubla. I can show you a video.

Crystal: Okay, so can we try it?  I'm gonna yell Kubla, and then you yell the last part, okay?

Jack Sparrow: Or I could yell Kubla actually.

Crystal: Okay, yes, you do the first part.

Jack Sparrow: Kubla!

Crystal: Con!

Jack Sparrow: Yeah.

Crystal: So, is there anything else that you want to tell me about KublaCon before we go?

Elphaba: Kublai Khan is a Mongolian.

Jack Sparrow: Famous Mongolian.

Crystal: He's a Mongolian?

Jack Sparrow: Yeah, that was a person dressed up the leader, the one that had a hammer. He was dressed up, and he had a deep voice.

Crystal: Ooh, that sounds pretty cool.

[25:07]Ambie: All right, I'm back without the boys to talk a little bit more about KublaCon because Toby and I did manage to go there a couple of nights for like an hour. Well, a couple hours one night and less than an hour the other night because the boys weren't sleeping. But we managed to play a couple of games and I wanted to mention one game. We went to the Protospiel area. There was a whole room dedicated to prototype games and the Golden Gate Game Makers is like the organization here in the Bay Area. It's like a lot of designers. And so they had like the room and they had lots of people playing prototypes and they had raffles and stuff. We did not win a raffle. But we played a couple prototypes in one that I wanted to mention. And I asked the designer, Andrew DiLullo, if I can mention it and he said yes, the code name is I Ain't Got Time For That, which he says is not gonna be the final name. 

Crystal: Oh my goodness, I'm in, whatever it is.

Ambie: Yeah. So it was a five minute game. This was basically like WarioWare, but in a board game format. Like it had the feel of WarioWare. It's like a bunch of mini games. It was a deck of cards and each card was its own mini game. And it had different components like dice and tokens and a meeple. And so each card on the back, it'll say like you need four dice or you need just yourself or something or you need everyone playing at the table. And so you take turns, flipping cards over, it's a cooperative game and you're trying to complete as many of the cards as possible in five minutes. And so you flip a card over and it'll say, like put the dice on this card and like follow this maze without touching the dice. And so you have to like kinda, it's a dexterity like sliding the dice along the card or something, or there's like a flicking thing or like stack up the dice like this or the tokens or like lots of different mini games. And we're just doing this and it was a lot of fun.

Crystal: It sounds fun.

Ambie: Yeah, it had the feel of WarioWare.

Crystal: I love WarioWare. I think it's an underrated Nintendo series for sure. I remember playing WarioWare on the Wii back in college and I still have photos on my Facebook of me and my friends doing the like poses together for the original like Wario, well, I don't think it was the original, it was like the second WarioWare game. I think there was a mobile one too, but I don't know. You said WarioWare and I was like, whatever it is, I'm in.

Ambie: Yeah, so he said he was actually inspired by, he said he hasn't actually played WarioWare but like a different game that was basically like WarioWare. I forget what the game was called, but he was inspired by that and WarioWare type games. But like it doesn't work as well for board games, like the specifics of speeding up a timer and having all that stuff. But it got the feeling, cause like he didn't say that before we played the game and we're like, oh, have you played WarioWare? Like it felt like that. So we really liked that. But I don't know. He still has like a lot of cards to design and stuff because like he only had so many and it'll need a lot more for a full game. But that was designer Andrew DiLullo, D-I-L-U-L-L-O. So I'll be on the lookout for if that gets published in the future.

Crystal: Me too.

Ambie: Yeah, and other things at KublaCon. I ran into Willie, GameritisGuy, who is in our discord. He also has a podcast with his daughter called Boardgames and Blank, but he gave me this dice tray. Apparently he takes old cigar boxes and like, or new cigar boxes, I don't know, and makes dice trays out of them. So he gave me one. That's pretty neat.

Crystal: It's beautiful. Like it looks really pretty. And I'm not a cigar person by any means.

Ambie: Me neither.

Crystal: Cigars are not my thing, but like cigar boxes are a neat little, yeah. Like that's a good thing.

Ambie: So yeah, that was a cool idea that he makes dice trays out of the cigar boxes because they look so pretty. Oh, I also, I got a couple of games. This was just a free game. Nimalia I got as a free game.

Crystal: Ooh, I played that on Board Game Arena. Yeah, it's fun. I like that game.

Ambie: You might've mentioned it on the podcast before.

Crystal: I don't know. I've only played it a couple of times, I wanna say, but I enjoy that game. It's a good one.

Ambie: All right, cool. And then I also got a free copy of Murder at the Atelier, Atelier, which is a escape room type game in cards, but it was designed by John Velgus, who is also a local designer and they designed it. He designed it for like, it wasn't like superly published. It was designed as like to give away for free for some things, but then also like selling it a little bit sometimes. So it wasn't barely available, but I had heard about it in a puzzle discord and then like messaged the people and then they said they could just give me a copy. And that was like two years ago. And then like, I forgot to, I wasn't able to see them at Kubla last year. And then this year I was like, oh, actually, Banzainator was there. So I saw her and it was like, oh, hi. I was not expecting you to be here. And so like, she got one and she told me that she told me like, oh, you should go get this. I'm like, oh yes, I should. So yeah.

Crystal: We love Banz. That's awesome.

Ambie: Yeah, it was great. Like we took pictures with bonds and my kids were very excited to take pictures with her and they kept wanting to see her again. So that was neat.

Crystal: Aww. Your kids are the biggest board game content creator fans in the world basically. And they're adorable. And all of us that they love, we love them too. So it's like, yeah, I don't see the boys.

Ambie: They don't actually watch much board game content though. Like they only know Banz from going to conventions and seeing her. And then they know the other people from my music videos. Oh, and speaking of which, I filmed some B-roll at KublaCon for a music video that I'm making on my other channel. Cause I haven't made a music video in a long time. So like, I'm going to do like a vlog style music video cause that's easier than doing like a full blown music video. So if you want to see like some of the stuff I did, vlog style, some of it is not actually stuff I did. Cause I had to get some B-roll of stuff. It's based on the songs that I'm singing and I'm not. I didn't actually play that many games. So I'm like taking B-roll of other people playing games. But yeah, you can see what KublaCon looks like in my latest song parody, "One Short Day."

Crystal: Hooray.

Ambie: Which may or may not be out when the podcast is out.

Crystal: Yeah. And I would say maybe they'll get a sneak peek of what that might sound like in the very near future.

Ambie: Yeah, in the outro.

Crystal: Yeah, like at the end of this episode.

Ambie: So I guess we will go to that now.

[30:51] Ambie: And that’s it for this week’s Board Game Blitz. Visit our website, boardgameblitz.com for more content and links.

This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. If you like 4X games, then you can get Last Light at greyfoxgames.com! There are limited deluxe editions available, so get it now! And if you want to buy games at greyfoxgames.com, you can get 10% off your entire cart, including exclusives, with the code BLITZ10 at checkout!

You can join the Blitzketeer community on Discord for game nights, discussions, and more by following the link in the show notes.

Dracula: And I am a real vampire.

Elphaba: And I am Elphaba.

Ambie: Yeah. Support the show by leaving us a rating and review on your podcast provider

And if you like us a lot and want to support us monetarily (and get some cool perks), check out our Ko-Fi at ko-fi.com/boardgameblitz today!

Our theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.

Until next time,

Ambie, Dracula, and Elphaba: One short day

In the board game convention

Bye everyone!

Crystal: Bye!

[31:46] Dracula: Bye. See you next time. Don't forget to subscribe.

Ambie: Well, we have another outro that we're going to do. Okay?

Dracula: Yeah.

Ambie: You want to do the outro with Mommy?

Elphaba: We didn't mean to say that.

Dracula: I did. I didn't mean to say it. No, I wanted to do that. Bye. Don't forget to subscribe and thumbs up if you like it. Thumbs down if you didn't. Bye. See you next time.

Elphaba: Thumbs up. Yes.

Dracula: Or thumbs down. Thumbs up. Thumbs down. Okay. Bye. See you next time.

Share: