Episode 240 - The End of Games

July 24, 2025

Ambie and Crystal discuss a couple games they played recently, including Codenames (the new version), Little Alchemists, and Look at the Stars. Then, we talk about games where players can choose whether or not to trigger the end game, and what we like or don't like about them.


Intro: 0:00
Recent Games: 0:44
Triggering End Game: 11:17
Outro: 30:25
Bloopers: 31:20

Games discussed this episode:
Codenames: 0:44
Little Alchemists: 3:46
Alchemists: 3:54
Look at the Stars: 7:19

Mooki Island: 13:36
Splendor: 15:17
Azul: 15:37
18xx: 16:46
Clue: 18:32
Sleuth: 18:32
Downforce: 19:19
Vast: The Crystal Caverns: 23:21
Rex: Final Days of an Empire: 23:25
Return to Dark Tower: 27:48

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Transcript
[0:06] Crystal: Hello and welcome to episode 240 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes to wait for your next turn during the last round of a game. Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we’re talking about THE END OF GAMES! First, we discuss a couple games we’ve played recently, Codenames, Little Alchemists, and Look at the Stars. Then, we talk about the ways we prefer our board games to end. And now, here are your hosts…
Ambie: Ambie
Crystal: and Crystal

[0:44] Ambie: Recently, I played a couple of games that I've played before, but I want to talk about them again because I got a review copy of Codenames, the new version from CGE.
Crystal: That's a pretty box. I like the new box.
Ambie: We've talked about Codenames a lot in the podcast. It's one of our favorite- It's a team word game, guessing game. There's a grid of five by five words and you're on a team. One person is the spy master on each team and the other people are guessing. Then there's this key card that tells you what words belong to your team, and then there's one assassin word on the grid. So you're trying to make clues, one word clues to give to your teammates to link as many words as possible that are on your grid. Like if you want to link penguin and lion or something, then you can say animal 2 or something. But then there's cat, then your team might guess that. So you have to look at all the words and make sure that you're not linking the words that you don't want them to guess. So it's fun thinking of clues and there's lots of table talking stuff, except for the spy master can't say anything. But there's table talk between teammates
Crystal: Which I'm so bad at. Like when I play this in person, that's why this game is good for me to play digitally, which now that there's lots of ways to play it digitally because there's an app and the website. But yeah, if I play in person, I have to restrain myself not because I want to cheat, but just because I'm a very emotive person.
Ambie: Yeah. But anyways, I got a copy of the new version, so we played it. It's the same game. So I think the word pool is new, but like that we didn't really notice that based on all of the data they got from the app and playing online. They updated the word pool of the 400 words that are included in here. But otherwise, a lot of it's similar. The art is updated on the key card slightly. And the main difference in the art is that now the tiles that cover up the cards before it just had like a male and female double sided. One side was male and one was female. But now they have like each card has a different image for both teams and for the neutrals. Lots of new art on the tile cards.
Crystal: That's fun.
Ambie: Yeah, I actually did a video of a comparison of all the components in code names. So you can go check that out on YouTube if you want to see it. My favorite component upgrade is actually the key card stand, which they use like their new re-wood stuff that CGE has. So it's not it's like a recycled alternative to plastic. I'm not sure exactly how it's made, but it feels really neat. And it also seems like it will before it was like plastic thing that holds up cards, but it has like those grooves in it that make the cards get the grooves in there after.
Crystal: Oh, yeah, the kind that like, yeah, that like will make marks in it basically over time.
Ambie: Yeah, this one, it still has those grooves, but it's shallower. So it seems like it won't actually mark the cards. I don't think it really marked him.
Crystal: So I mean, it's one of those things where it doesn't matter. But like some people really like to keep their games pristine, right?
Ambie: So yeah, so that was my main difference. There was some there was like another rule in the rule book to like another variant rule. And then it talked about the app a lot in the rule book since the app exists now. But  yeah, otherwise, it's like if you like codenames, this is the new version of Codenames and it's nice and nicer art. But if you already have codenames, you don't need to get the new one.

[3:46] Ambie: And then I also played Little Alchemists, which is already talked about. I got this as a review copy and already did an overview video of it. This is a children's game designed by Matúš Kotry. He designed Alchemists, which is a worker placement deduction game for adults. And then he has a kid who wanted to play. And so he designed Little Alchemists for his kid, which is like such a cute story.
Crystal: That is adorable. Really? Like I love that. I hope a more board game designers who have children make kid versions of their bigger board games because that's just so cute.
Ambie:  Yeah. So I've been playing it. I did an overview after we played level one. There's like unlockable- It's a legacy game kind of there's unlockable chests in it as you play more and more. So I don't remember if I talked about it on the podcast. Maybe I've mentioned it, but like we've been playing it more this last week. My kids asked to play the science game. But in the game, you're like making potions. You have ingredients. You use an app to look at the ingredients and then it tells you what potion it makes. And you have this little triangle thing to help with deduction. I actually like this game better than Alchemists because it's just the deduction part. You get points for like making theories and deductions. There's no none of the other stuff. Whereas when I played Alchemists, like it felt like the deductions didn't really matter that much because you just win. You could just win without like knowing any of the deduction. But here it's more the deduction part. So it has this little triangle thing so you can match up if you use a frog and a feather and it makes a fire potion. And then you put a fire potion in the little part where they intersect. Well, I think one of my kids gets it and the other kid still needs some help on figuring out this triangle thing because he hasn't played it as much. And then we've unlocked a few of the chests. And so like the first game is just basic, just doing that. But then later you can unlock chests and you can develop theories about which ingredients make which potions and then it unlocks more stuff. And so it's exciting. They really like the app and making the potions and unlocking the things. Also, the app has like little animations after each level you unlock because there's a little story. So my kids like watching those videos. But yeah, I'm enjoying Little Alchemists.
Crystal:  I mean, it feels like- this is not a commentary on modern society. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But like kids see phones everywhere. They see screens everywhere. And regardless of how parents choose to implement screen time in their kids lives. Again, I'm not doing commentary on that. But like kids have always been excited by things on screens, even before the digital age. Like if when TVs were brand new and like you only had one in the house, everybody was gathered around it. So it feels like having a board game that has a little bit of an app component to it is actually potentially a really neat way to draw in kids who maybe otherwise weren't like they were kind of looking at the board game and not super interested. But now if they know like, oh, that you know, there's going to be a cool video that's going to unlock a thing, it might be that little bit extra of a push to make them want to play the board game, which ironically will get them away from the screen. So it's like, ha ha ha, we've tricked you.
Ambie: Because the screen is very minimal here. It's just helping you with your turn and seeing what happens. But yeah, I've really been enjoying Little Alchemists because I love deduction games.
Crystal: You're making me want to play it like I kind of like I want to play Little Alchemist.
Ambie: I'm excited to see what's in the next box too.
Crystal: Great, I'm gonna be buying myself a kids game in the next when I get on the online next.

[7:19] Crystal: All right, well, the game that I'm talking about today is one that I've actually been playing on board game arena for a while. And I don't think I've ever brought up on the podcast proper. And so I figured it was time to fix that. I am talking about the Roll and Write well flip and write game Look at the Stars, designed by Romain Caterdjian, published by Bombyx. And this one came out in 2022. It feels like it's been on BGA longer than that, weirdly to me, but obviously I assume that's not the case. So Look at the Stars, as I said, is a flip and write game where players each take a dry erase board and a marker. Their boards all are representative of the night sky and have a grid of stars on them. And then during the course of the game, you flip over cards from a deck that will show you specific line patterns. And you get to choose where on your board to draw those lines. And you have certain goals that you're trying to achieve in doing that. Like you're specifically trying to make constellations that have a certain number of stars as part of them. And then there's also some bonus shapes each game that you if you can make like that exact shape with the lines, then you'll get some bonus points. And then there are also shooting stars that can come out in the deck. And you get to choose how long shooting stars are when you draw them. But obviously, they can block other things because every time you draw stuff on your board, you're potentially removing space options for other things later. The thing you have to consider when any card gets drawn, and you decide whether to draw those lines on your board or not, because you can pass as well, is you're trying to make constellations of different sizes, meaning the different points that are connected or intersected. And you can only do as far as line segments go between three and eight. And each number can only score one time. So like if I have a three line constellation on my board already, and I make another three line constellation, if I don't add to that one later, only one of those is going to score. So you can't just like make a bunch of little constellations, you have to diversify the sizes. And if they're touching, then they're no longer multiple constellations, they combine. And if it gets bigger than eight, you don't score for it as well. So when the cards come out with the line shapes you can draw, you can flip and rotate the design however you want. So there's some flexibility there. But throughout the course of the game, the amount of space on your board that you're allowed to draw on reduces from the bottom up. So it's interesting because you want to start down toward the bottom of your board, because it's available at the beginning and that won't be later. But then you'll realize like to make a certain shape or to make a constellation of a certain size, you have to like sometimes make sacrifices.
This game is only rated currently on BGG a 6.2, which I mean, in the world of ratings, when you're on a 10 point scale, technically 6.2 is what above average, right, I guess, in theory, but I from what we know about BGG ratings, if I saw a game normally with a 6.2, I would think oh, people don't like that game. And I don't really know why that would be the case with this one. Like, it's a cute theme. It's got solid gameplay, and I really enjoy it. So I don't know exactly why the ratings aren't what I would have expected here. So in case you're like me, and you occasionally do look at that rating thing on BGG, and you're like, Oh, this one must not be any good because it's a 6.2. I can tell you that's not the case. This one is quite fun. And you should absolutely give it a try given the opportunity either in person or on board game arena, because it is available there as well. And it plays up to eight players simultaneously, all turns are simultaneous. So it's a quick game, no matter how many people you have playing. I like this one. And yeah, I just I realized I had never talked about it, even though I've played it a number of times. So that is look at the stars by Bombyx and I believe in America, it actually got published by Pandasaurus Games.

[11:17] Crystal: Good friend of the show and active participant in the Blitz discord, including our weekly game nights, Andrea, suggested a topic for us and we thought it was a really good one. So today we're going to be talking about games or situations in games where players kind of can dictate how or when the game ends. And that tension that can arise from you know, the game is getting close to the end, but is somebody going to trigger it? Or do you get that one last turn to, you know, get some more points or resources or whatever it is you need. And Andrea also mentioned that, you know, that feeling of when a game is dragging on a little bit longer than you kind of wish it would. And I think it's a good one to discuss. We've talked a lot about the game experience as a whole, but I don't think we've ever really tackled specifically like end game triggers or the feeling of a game ending per se.
Ambie: Yeah, I actually really like it when players can trigger the end game and have that choice because it's like, am I ahead enough to want to trigger the end game now? Or do I want to get more points but then will someone else trigger the end game is it better if I trigger it because they're going to trigger it next time? Like, I really like that.
Crystal: I do too. I think it's enjoyable to have that variability.
Ambie: Yeah, and like in Little Alchemist yesterday and the later levels, which is I guess a little bit of a spoiler, but there's multiple end game conditions. You can either discover five of the six theories - this is like collectively people are discovering theories - or you can have the stack run out. And so in the basic game is just the stack runs out. But then once you discover theories then or once you unlock theories, then like discovering the theories is a way to end the game. And it wants you to do that in order to get more stuff to unlock the next levels. So like that happened to me because last night I was playing with Toby and our kids before it was just me and our kids. So my kids aren't very good at making theories. But then with Toby is like, oh, is he going to do the next theory? Like do should I do that now or do I want to get a customer and get points that way? Or like should I do the theories that Toby can't do it? Like that choice, even in a kid's game.
Crystal: I mean, that's probably a sign of a good kids game, I would imagine.
Ambie: Yeah. Just like the other kids game recently that surprised me also had you able to kind of trigger the end game was Mooki Island, a two player card game kind of set collection. But there's two piles that you choose from when one piles empties, that's the end of the game. So you're kind of like, if there's one card left in the pile, it's like, oh, do I want to trigger the end game now or keep it going?

Crystal: Yeah, I think when I think of board games in general, especially games involving points, I would imagine that 40, 50 years ago, it was probably way more common, even if in a game where points were a thing for like, okay, this is the number of points you need to win. And once someone has that they win. Those types of endings in some contexts can be really, I think, unsatisfying because a they happen suddenly. And there's the build, there's no real buildup. Or like it just I don't know, for me, it's when something ends suddenly, especially if I wasn't expecting it, it can be really disappointing. But I've noticed that modern board games, even point based ones often now have like a point threshold. It's where okay, once someone meets this point threshold, once they hit 100 points, then the end game is triggered. But it's not that the end, you know, the game ends immediately, because the game recognizes that other players maybe haven't had the same number of turns yet. So everybody gets one more turn or gets to finish their turn or whatever it is. And then at that point, whoever has the most points wins. And in a lot of instances, it is not the person who triggered the game, it's they have gotten their first, but they might not be the one that ultimately has the most.
Ambie: Yeah, so I think that's good. Like when you're triggering it, you don't necessarily win. Because if you trigger it and you win, then it's like, there's no decision there. Of course, you're gonna trigger it. But yeah, yeah, like in Splendor was is one that has it like that, I think.
Crystal: Oh, yeah
Ambie: You finished the round. So you keep track of who was the first person to play. And so if the last person in the round triggers it, then that's it. But if it's the first person triggers it, then everyone else gets a turn to finish the round. So everyone gets the same number of turns. And then there's games that like, like where everyone gets a turn, like simultaneously, like Azul. And that one you trigger the endgame by completing a horizontal row, I think.
Crystal: Yeah, a horizontal row filling up.
Ambie: So everyone gets a turn, it's like one round, you're kind of all placing them at the same time. So you kind of see
Crystal: Yeah, also, in at least in regular Azul, you can see that one coming generally, like you can see everybody's boards and you're like, okay, they have two rows and they've already got four in.
Ambie: Yeah, they can only do one at a time. So it's like, okay, if you have four in a row, then then the endgame can come next time. But if there's people only have three, then it's not possible.
Crystal: And if you're that person that has four in a row and could trigger the endgame, it is an interesting little dance to kind of try and keep an eye on people's boards and their scores and seem like, okay, if I trigger endgame now, am I better off to try and win? And in Azul specifically, since there's bonuses for completing full columns and getting all of a certain color, you have to like keep an eye on what your opponents are doing in that regard and be like, oh, they're about to complete their second color and they're about to complete their second column. So yeah, no, we're ending this.
Ambie: Yeah, we have to end it before that happens. I'm ahead now, but I won't be later. Yeah, that happens a lot in 18xx games too. It's not necessarily triggering endgame, although that can happen. But in 18xx games, there's like triggering different phases throughout the game because they're very long games, but the players determine the pacing of that based on buying trains. And so like, if you're ahead now, then you're okay, let's just leave it going like this, but then other people will want to rush it forward. And then like there are some where bankruptcy triggers the endgame, but that's like, you're not trying to go bankrupt yourself usually to trigger the endgame because you lose normally.
Crystal: Yeah, generally not an optimal strategy for winning, you know.
Ambie: But other people can be trying to make someone go bankrupt too. So like, that's slightly different.

Crystal: Yeah, do you have a favorite way for games to end like in this kind of vein? Like the games that you like most, do they have anything any commonalities and how they tend to end? I know you just discussed 18xx games. But like, I know for me, I don't like people getting sad. And so like a game that ended in somebody going bankrupt is probably not even though I'm not a huge 18xx fan, like that is not going to be an endgame condition that I'll probably enjoy because it involves somebody basically guaranteed losing. And that's less enjoyable for me.
Ambie: So I'm trying to think a lot of my favorite games probably don't have, I'm trying to think like the cooperative games and stuff. Well, some of them they have like lose conditions.
Crystal: Right. And I guess that's a little, but we can talk about that too, like where the endgame isn't a singular trigger, where there are multiple triggers, right? Both winning and losing.
Ambie: Although sometimes that's not entirely player dependent on like, this happened. So that's has a different feeling for me. But I guess like there's deduction games where like Clue or sleuth or the basic deduction games where someone figures out the thing. So whoever figures it out first, it's like a race. I guess, yeah, that has a similar feeling to a race game where whoever crosses the finish line first, they win, which-
Crystal: Is Clue a racing game and we didn't realize it all along? I think Clue is a racing game. I'm stating it officially now. Board Game Blitz says Clue is a racing game. Tell your friends.
Ambie: Yeah, but I guess like that's a lot of where you're triggering the endgame by winning. That's what a race is kind of. So you're racing right. They answer first.

Crystal: But then there are there are actual racing themed board games. Like some of them it's the finish line, whoever crosses first, and then some of them it's whoever makes it the farthest. And so it's not always who crosses the finish line first too. Well, and then there's, so Downforce, I think is a really neat example of a game that's kind of mixing board game genres because in Downforce, most of the time, each player will own at least one of the cars, but you don't like your car isn't your be all end all in Downforce. Like you get winnings based on how it places if you purchased it at the beginning of the game, but you're also betting on who's gonna win the race throughout the course of the game. And so you can own zero cars and still win the game. Or you could own two or three cars, that'd be a low player count game, but like and not win the game. Like there's a lot of different ways that Downforce can go. And so just because someone else's car crosses the finish line first, that really doesn't necessarily mean anything in regard to if they're gonna win. And I'm so bad at Downforce. I always well, especially I like to play the odds variant. I don't know if you're familiar, but like you can change the way the betting goes. And instead of just doing straight bets on which car is going to win, you can bet based on their current placing. And so like if they're in front when you bet on them, you get less odds. Yeah. And so I never bet for the ones that are in the lead because that is not fun when you're betting on odds. And obviously odds are there for a reason. Like if they're in the lead. But like to me, when I play Downforce, if I were to win or tie based on betting on the car that was in the lead the whole time, that's not an exciting experience for me. Because A, likely somebody else is doing the same thing. And so like, okay, yay, we tied or whatever we got close. No, I want someday, someday one of my long shots is going to come through in Downforce. And it's going to be an epic victory for me. And eventually it'll happen maybe. But it does make it exciting because you're like, which car is going to cross the finish line first? Okay, now how much money does everybody have? Like there's multiple little moments at the end of that game that make it super exciting.

Ambie: Yeah, but going back to pure racing ones, thematically, it makes sense that whoever crosses the finish line first wins. But like with a board game, because most board games are turn based, like you have to have everyone have the same number of turns because thematically that would be at the same time. And so I think that's why you would have them go all go and then whoever got crosses for this because that means that they maybe crossed first that turn or something like it's right hard to translate exactly.
Crystal: No, you're you're absolutely correct. And this is something that I imagine some game designers struggle with is how to make the game ending as equitable as possible, especially because there are a lot of games where you might have had kind of an innate advantage from either going first or last depending on the type of game. And so a lot of games mitigate for this by at the beginning of the game, like if going first is a benefit, then often they'll give resources to player two and then some more to player three and then even more to player four to kind of offset. But I have to imagine that finding that balance to try and make things as fair as possible is probably something that is really difficult to do well in game design. And so I think game designers who do that well should be commended because at the beginning of the game, everybody starts at a different time. And at the end, like you said, everybody's finishing technically at a different time. But we're trying to, you know, in the theater of the mind, say we were all crossing the finish line at the same time. So it's a little different.
Ambie: Yeah. But then like, balancing the balance of the game with also the excitement, because sometimes if it's too balanced, then it might not be as exciting as an end game. So I am not a game designer and do not envy that.

Crystal: Even though I don't play games that are super asymmetric that often, because they often require more players and they're often longer, I do enjoy games that have asymmetric win conditions as well. The times that I've played them, I've really enjoyed them. And it's a genre of game that's hard to get to the table for me. But like some good examples of this would be Vast: the Crystal Caverns or what was Dune that then turned to Rex that then turned back to Dune again. At this point, I think it's Dune, but I have never played Dune. I've only played Rex. So it's a little, it's the same game. But basically, in Vast: the Crystal Caverns, everybody is a different person or entity in the game. And everybody has a completely different win condition. Everybody's working toward entirely different things. For instance, my favorite, which I've mentioned on the podcast before, is one person is the cavern literally, and their job is to collapse and kill everyone else inside of them. And when that game first came out, I was like, okay, A, it's called the crystal cavern. So I have to be the cavern because my name is Crystal. And just the idea of you're a cavern like that. When you talk about like role playing, no one's ever like, I want to be the cave. But I do. I want to be the cave. But then in Rex, there's even more divergence in the in game conditions because some of them are really situational. And then there are also win game conditions that require other players to do well. So like for one of the factions in Rex, you're literally betting on who is going to win the game and in what round of the game they will win. So it's a really specific bet that you have to make. But if you successfully predict those two things, and that other person does win in that round, you steal their victory from them and you win instead. And if you're talking about dramatic in game moments, that's one of them because that like, just waiting and watching that other person and like seeing them get close to victory and like, oh, no, the end of the round is coming. Are they going to do it? Are they going to pull it off? Like that kind of stuff to me creates those thematic cinematic almost moments in board games that bring a theme to life and that bring the experience to kind of a next level.

Ambie: So we've mostly been talking about like cool things about being able to trigger the end game. But I guess like one detriment would be that it's less likely to know how long a game will last. Because like, if you can trigger an end game or it's like super variable, then it could be really short or really long and maybe no one wants to trigger it or some reason or like people can't or something like it could just drag on and on.
Crystal: It's one of those things that you don't really start thinking about heavily until I think you get into the hobby because when I was a kid and I would pull out board games, I mean, admittedly, time is so free when you're a kid that you don't think about it much at all. But like, I never was like, how long is this board game going to take? Like I was literally like, I want to play this game. I'm pulling it off the shelf. Whereas now we all have to be stupid, thoughtful adults and like actually manage our lives. And so you do like, OK, I want to have an idea of how long we're going to be playing this game. I need to know because are we going to play something else later? Do we need to order food? Do we need to like, you know, are the kids OK? Like what there's so many factors. And so literally with something like Rex, for instance, where perhaps somebody could weirdly trigger a victory in like the first or second round, I think it is possible. Or it could take hours to play. That's a hard thing to accommodate as an adult who likes to plan things out.
Ambie: Yeah. And then when those games, when they do end really fast, you're like kind of a little bit disappointed because like, oh, I was expecting to play longer and it's like over now what?
Crystal: It is funny because those types of the early wins can be really exciting and memorable. But also, yes, a little disappointing because you're like, well, we wanted to play more. I mean, at that point, it's like, OK, reset started again, I guess.
Ambie: But then do you have time if it goes longer?

Crystal: I'm trying to think of what my favorite way for a game to end. I think kind of similar to you. You are more a cooperative game fan, I think, than I am. But like not by much like it's we both love cooperative games. I do like having a goal to work toward because that feels satisfying in the end. Right? Especially if you accomplish it, if you don't, then a little, you know, whatever. But like I like being able to work towards something specific and be working toward it as a group can also be like really enjoyable. That shared experience of we're all working toward the same thing. I think that is probably one of my favorite things. So like, you know, Return to Dark Tower where we got to get through these baddies and those baddies and find the big bad and then defeat them. And even if it's going to be difficult, we're all on the journey together.
Ambie: Yeah.

Crystal: So going back to Andrea's comments before we wrap this up, one of the things that she mentioned was kind of that sweet spot between games that drag on and overstay their welcome and games that end abruptly, which is what we were just talking about. So let's say you can't have the game end at a very satisfying place. You have to choose. Does it drag on for too long or does it end too early? Which generally would you choose?
Ambie: I would choose end too early because I value my time.
Crystal: Because we're adults and life is awful. That's why. If we were children, we would choose the opposite, I bet.
Ambie: Yeah, maybe. Also, if a game drags on too much, I get bored too and I want to do something else. So-
Crystal: That's true. Yeah. Even if you were really excited about a game,
Ambie: If it's dragging on and everyone thinks it's dragging on, we would just call it and be like, okay, we're done. But like, if it ends abruptly, I would be a little sad, but then we could play another game or something.
Crystal: Yeah, that's true. I agree. And I've gotten, I think I'm improving year over year at ending games that are dragging or at least being willing to present that as an idea to the group. I don't know. We've discussed this, I know before, but it sometimes feels taboo to end a game before it should theoretically end. It feels weirdly wrong. And I have started getting over that. And at a certain point, I'm like, we're old, we're adults. It's 10 PM and this game still has, the end is not in sight friends. So guess what? Are we calling it? Can we call it? We're calling it. Here we go. John wins the game and we're done. What I'll do sometimes rather than just doing it kind of that abruptly, so I'll be like, okay guys, it looks like we're going to be have a bunch more rounds. We don't have time. How about we play one or two more rounds? And then at the end of that, whoever is, and that way everybody can be like, okay, new end game, you know, like you're okay. Let me change my plan a little bit. So it still gives people some agency. But yeah, like it feels weirdly taboo to do that. And I don't quite know why. It's not like the board game police are going to come knocking on my door and be like, you didn't properly finish your game.
Ambie: Yeah. 18xx games helped me with that too, because they're long. And so we learned to start calling them if we didn't have time for them. And then that's extended to regular length games now as we have kids.
Crystal: Yeah. And then as they get older, though, you'll be able to kind of incorporate them more. So it'll only get better, I imagine.
Ambie: Yeah.

[30:25] Ambie: And that’s it for this week’s Board Game Blitz. Visit our website, boardgameblitz.com for more content and links. 
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Our theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.
Until next time,
It’s the end of the game as we know it
And I feel fine
Bye everyone!
Crystal: Bye!

[31:20] Crystal: Designed by Romain- [BARKING] 
Okay, well, now Sterling's barking. [BARK] What? Why?
Are you barking at the ceiling? What is that? [BARK]
Yes?
Hello, sir?
He doesn't bark very often anymore. Unless like he and Helly are playing. [BARK] Hey! [BARK] Hey, who are you barking at?

Crystal: The game I'm talking about is... [BARK] Look at... Okay, you know what? That's just rude.
Dude, as soon as I started talking, come on.
Ambie: It's like you're talking, I'm talking too.
Crystal: Seriously, out of nowhere. Like he's just laying on the floor staring at me. What?

Crystal: You're potentially removing space options for other things later.
Ambie: Someone's at the door, I need to
Crystal: Do what?
Ambie: Someone's knocking on the door. 
Crystal: Okay.

Crystal: ...maybe holding out a little longer to try and get some more points and... I'm going to sneeze.
[SNEEZE]
I didn't know what else to say in that moment because I was like, "Oh, shoot, it's coming all of a sudden."
Ambie: I was not expecting that.
Crystal: I just all of a sudden.

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