Episode 242 - Bringing Games to Life
August 21, 2025
Ambie and Crystal discuss a couple games they played recently, including Concealed, MicroMacro: Downtown Detective (mobile app), and Draw Along with Dave (web app). Then, we talk about a few games where the themes are something we'd like to do in real life.
Intro: 0:00
Recent Games: 0:46
Game Themes IRL: 15:56
Outro: 28:22
Games discussed this episode:
MicroMacro: Crime City: 6:02
Crime O'Clock: 10:23
Draw Along with Dave: 11:56
Patchwork: 18:18
Castell: 20:23
Disney Animated: 21:31
World's Fair 1893: 24:03
Kirby's Sweets Party: 25:26
Sagrada: 26:52
This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Use the code "BLITZ10" to get 10% off your entire cart.
Board Game Blitz's theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.
Transcript
[0:06] Crystal: Hello and welcome to episode 242 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes to determine the real world viability of stacking up camels during a camel race. Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we’re talking about bringing board games to life! First, we discuss a couple games we’ve played recently, Concealed, Draw Along With Dave, and MicroMacro Downtown Detective. Then, we talk about which realistic board game themes we wish we could do in real life. And now, here are your hosts…
Ambie: Ambie
Crystal: and Crystal
[0:46] Ambie: Recently, I played a print and play game called Concealed. This is either currently on Kickstarter or going to be on Kickstarter. The designer actually emailed me about it, but they have a Kickstarter version and then also a free print and play version, which is available on itch.io. So I played the free print and play version. So Concealed is a game that you can play with this board that you print out and then a deck of cards. So I have that. You don't have to print out the deck of cards. It's just a regular deck of cards.
Crystal: I mean, I guess you could if you really wanted to, but most people I think own a 52 deck of cards.
Ambie: Yeah, but it is designed by Ivan Marić, published 2025. It's a solo game that takes like 15 minutes to play. I've played it a couple of times. There's a Zen mode and then like a regular game mode. In the Zen mode, you don't worry about scoring or like finishing in a certain time. And then the regular game, it has the scoring rules and you have to win in a certain number of rounds or you lose. So in the game, there's a card that's a concealed card. It's not like literally concealed. You know what it is. So you pick a card at the beginning randomly and then that card is the concealed card. And you're basically trying to fill in all of the other cards by like their number and their suit. So the printout basically just has the numbers two through King and it goes Ace, Jack, Queen, King is 11, 12, 13, 14. And then the suits. And so you have to fill in each of those sections except for the concealed card. So if you have like the eight of spades as your concealed card, then you want to fill in all of the numbers except for the number eight and all of the suits except for the spades. I said spades, right? I think so.
Crystal: I already forgot.
Ambie: But you wouldn't forget because you would put the card out and you see what you do. And then the way the game works is you have a hand of six cards and on your turn, you could choose different ways to play. You can either discard two cards and that's just discarding or you can play three cards by their rank. So you would play like a two, a five and a six and then you put them on those numbers. But when you put things on the numbers like that's it. Once you play a two, you can't play any other thing on that spot. So you cover it up. And so like if you can't play anymore, then you lose. Or you would discard, I guess. And so you get to play with the rank, three cards and you have to do three of them at once. Or you can do two cards of an addition. So you add two cards together and put those on one spot. So like seven plus four could be an eleven, which is an ace here. Or you can play the suit where you have to have three cards of the same suit and then you put it on the suit one. So basically you're going through the deck, refilling your hand each turn and trying to cover up all of these things. And so in the Zen mode, that's it. You just want to finish before the end of the deck.
But in the base game mode, you get different types of scoring. So like if you play a rank and you play them in order like two, three, four, then you get three points. But if it's only a straight up to like two, three and then six or something, then you get two points. And otherwise you just one point. And then if you play addition, if they're like the same color, but different suits, then you get more points. And if you're playing the suit, if you play it on turn like three or turn six or something, then you get extra points. Five points versus one point. And so you're like trying to plan ahead and play certain things when you have certain things to get more points. But also you only get 13 turns to play it in that mode, which is not the whole deck.
So, yeah, I played the Zen mode first and I won. I was like, oh, cool. And then I played the base game. I think it took three times for me to win it. Yeah. So like at first I was like, oh, I'm getting all like the high points and stuff. And I was like, wait, I can't finish now because I needed to fill in two more things. And I only had one more turn left. And so then on the on the third game, I found it was like, OK, I'm going to try to win without caring about the score. And then I was able to win it in the time limit. So it's a neat puzzle game solo game. I don't play that many solo games. I know I did a lot of like solo print and play games. That's like the only time I play solo games is really for like streaming or for making content. And the reason I did this is because we just moved and I haven't played a game and I didn't have anything to talk about. And so I was like, oh, I had started playing it. I like played the Zen mode and I was like, OK, I can try to play like the base game now since it's easy to get out, since I just had to print a paper and I have a deck of cards. All my other board games are not not organized yet. But I was able to play Concealed because it was easy to play and I actually played it with my kid. So a lot of times like solo games, I would just play by myself. But now my kids are older so they can kind of like watch and kind of help. So like one of my kids, he didn't really help, but he helped with the addition. I had him like, oh, I'm going to play these. Now where does it go? So-
Crystal: I love that.
Ambie: Yeah, but that's concealed. It's like a solo puzzle game. I'm not sure exactly what the Kickstarter has. I think it has like fancier components and stuff that you can get. But the print and play on itch is available for free. So if you're interested in solo puzzle games that are quick and very quick set up and concealed was fun.
Crystal: Nice. And obviously the link to that will be in the show notes for anybody who's interested.
[5:37] Crystal: Well, I am going to talk about two games today, both of which are technically not board games, but are very board game adjacent. I'm going to start off with a game that is related to games that you've talked about on the show before, and that is MicroMacro: Downtown Detective.
So this is the new mobile app game from the people who made MicroMacro: Crime City. It's funny, I actually still have not played MicroMacro, like the actual board game. Yeah, well, so I'm 40 years old now and I've always had horrible eyesight. And as I'm getting older, I've had some other eye issues that have cropped up, which is why if anybody's watching us on YouTube, they've noticed I've been wearing glasses lately, which technically these do not adjust my myopia at all. They're prism glasses. That's a whole other thing. But regardless, games like MicroMacro, I kind of like as I'm getting older, I'm like, oh, man, I'm like, am I going to get that and be like leaning into the table because I can't see anything? Is it too going to be too detailed? Whatever else. I think I would be fine, truly. But when I saw there was an app version of the game, I was like, oh, I was like, this is a neat way for me to potentially try out the system. And I really appreciated the fact that the app, you can download it for free and play. I don't remember how many cases were free. I know it was at least-
Ambie: It was three.
Crystal: Yeah, three cases.
Ambie: Cause I had downloaded it and I've played the free cases.
Crystal: Nice. Well, I played literally one case and then I went ahead and just paid at that point because I liked it so much. I was like, and I also like to support, you know, publishers that are doing things like this because I think it's neat and it makes board games a little bit more well known potentially. So I did pay for the full version and the full version includes so much. For those of you watching on YouTube, I'll show I have two sections of the nine section city unlocked so far and I've already completed six missions. I have four others that are visible to me. Two other city sections that I could open up. Like there's clearly a lot of content in this game. And, you know, to be fair, that makes sense. Let me back up and explain what MicroMacro is for anybody who hasn't heard your review of the full board game. MicroMacro is in its board game form a giant piece of paper that has a lot of black ink line illustrations drawn on it. Very busy, like lots and lots of things going on.
And the app version is very similar. It's a large scale city drawing that has stuff going on everywhere. People and things and places and buildings all over the place. And time is not standing still in this picture. Time is moving throughout the picture. And so you're solving crime cases. Some of the content is more adult in nature. So if you have little ones, that is something important to note. But some of them are less so. Like some of it is like, oh, no, somebody stole my wallet out of my bag. And you literally find the victim on the picture. It gives you an idea. Then you find them and you tap on the app to locate things and it will either circle, underline or point arrows to things as you locate them. And then it will tell you what to do next or it'll ask you questions like, OK, where does this person live? And you kind of have to trace back their steps and find them in different locations on the picture as time passed and trace them back to like their house, for instance, and see, OK, that's where they live. Now, who was in their path as they were walking or whatever else? It's quite neat, honestly. The cases are relatively short. I've only played cases that range from one star difficulty to three star difficulty. And it goes all the way up to five. So some of the five four or five star ones I imagine will take a little bit longer. But all of mine so far have taken anywhere from three to eight minutes to complete each. And that's a nice little bite sized thing to do in an app. That's what I want out of an app game is I want to open it up, play a case or two, close it, you know, just like kill time between other things. So I'm really happy.
I think the production of it is really nice and slick. The interface works well. And it does actually make me more interested in picking up the board game now, too, which I think is kind of the point. So I highly recommend if you like app games and you can zoom in really far. So if you're working and you have potential vision issues, like it's really nice that you could just zoom, zoom, zoom on your phone and get as close as you want. Pretty much. And then just move around. Oh, and they do have a hint system as well. So if you are struggling, there is a way to get like hints and clues to help you out along the way so you don't get stuck.
Ambie: Yeah, I think MicroMacro works really well as an app. Like I knew it was going to because there's like- Crime O'Clock is kind of similar is a video game that I've played some of. And yeah, like being able to mark the things is really nice because you can't do that on the board game version, which MicroMacro Kids improved with little tiddlywinks. But yeah, the app is just so smooth.
Crystal: It is. It's really nice. And again, since it's free to download and try the first three cases, I can highly recommend that to anybody that has a Apple or Android mobile device. So give that a try. That's MicroMacro: Downtown Detective.
[10:52] Crystal: And then the other game I wanted to talk about, I have mentioned in the past that I am a big fan of digital group style party games. And during the pandemic era, I had bought some games online that Big Potato Games, which is a board game publisher, had put online. They put a few of their games online, actually, including like Herd Mentality, Scrawl, and they've added some more over time. Like they have The Chameleon on here now. And I purchased one of the game packs that I didn't already have recently. And I don't know if this new game came from Big Potato or the people they're partnered with on this site. The website you go to to access all of it is game.city. And I do not know whether Big Potato owns game.city or is just partnered with them. But Big Potato Games are here. So they're definitely at least partnered with them, if not one in the same.
And the game that has absolutely blown me away is called Draw Along with Dave. It is basically gamifying the experience of watching a Bob Ross style tutorial, except one of the players is Bob Ross. And what you have to do. Yeah, no. So what happens in the game is the person who is Dave is given a prompt that they have to both draw and describe to the other players as they're drawing it. And the other players then also draw it, but they don't know what they're drawing. So if there isn't a board game version of this exact thing yet, there absolutely should be. So on my prompt was door. That sounds incredibly simple, right? Like it's a door. Trying to describe how to draw a door as you're drawing a door is way more difficult than you would imagine. And it was so funny because I was trying to describe it. Everybody was like, what? No, wait, where? How? Cause you have to be-
Ambie: Wait, do they see what you're drawing, or...
Crystal: No, not at all. They do not see, they only-
Ambie: Okay, that makes more sense.
Crystal: Yes. So they don't see what you're drawing. They just hear your audio description of what you're drawing. Then at the end, after they've drawn their drawing before they see your drawing or what you were supposed to be drawing, they guess what they think you were told to draw. And then it shows everybody's drawings. In the case of mine with like door, one person drew almost exactly what I had drawn, like to a T. And everyone else's were completely not even close, which is funny because I was like, well, I clearly didn't do a bad job. But the entire group was dying, laughing the whole time. And it was weird because it was stressful in a fun way to be Dave. Like when you were the person that had to draw and describe, like everybody was a little bit anxious going in. But there was no judgment from the other players because it's hard. And we all were seeing that as it was happening. And so it was chill and also stressful at the same time. Like the magic that happened with this game, I had to mention it on the podcast, because if there are other people out there who do Jackbox game nights or things of that nature, this is absolutely one you should look up and add to your repertoire. You can like launch it from a browser and then everybody can scan the QR code from their phone and play on their phone just like a Jackbox game. And it was so fun. There is like a scoring system technically, like at the end it gave us points. We don't even know how. I don't care. Like that was not the point of it for me, I guess. I don't know. But love, love, love. This is going to be a regular edition at Blitz game nights in the Discord on Saturdays. So fun.
Ambie: I want to play this. It reminds me of in like second or third grade, we had we did that like as an exercise of showing how communication is important or something. But like we had we had to describe to someone on the board to draw a clock or something without saying it. There's like a circle and then like draw lines inside the circle. But then we had to like be very specific saying like the center and come out at this distance.
Crystal: Yes. So and the drawing tool is available to you. You don't have any colors. It's just black and white. But you can change the thickness of the line. So that was all you had to work with was just different thicknesses of black lines. And yeah, like trying to be like, OK, go third up the page and then halfway across. And everybody's like, wait, what? No, where do I where was I supposed to put the circle? It's just madness. Draw along with Dave gets eight thumbs up from me. I don't have that many arms, but that's how many thumbs I want to give it.
[15:56] Crystal: Speaking of game nights in the Blitz discord, recently we were all chit chatting during one of those game nights and an interesting idea for a podcast theme popped up. And so we decided we're going to tackle that today and we're going to talk about themes in board games that we want to do in real life. We realized pretty quickly that this could get out of hand relatively fast because there's a lot in board games that's very fantastical. And so while we might do this again with a fantasy theme and I think that could be quite fun, we've somewhat limited this list to more based in reality activity. Because, yeah, I like as much as we would probably love to fight dragons, we're not going there today.
Ambie: But I actually like wouldn't want to like a lot of the fantasy themes. I wouldn't want to because like that's dangerous and theoretically like you like the story. A lot of the stories that I like, I would not want to live in them because, yeah, I don't want dragons burning my house down.
Crystal: Ambie I want unicorns in my life. And if I have to deal with dragons to get them, I'll do it. I don't care.
But for today, we're just going to start a ranked list, but we've each chosen a handful of games that are activities we would want to do in real life. For my list specifically, they are things I have never done before. I don't know if that applies to your list.
Ambie: Yeah, actually, like the first one that I thought of, because this is hard for me to think of things that I would actually want to be in a board game, because a lot of the board games I play involves like murder and like very stressful things. Like I don't want to actually defuse a bomb.
Crystal: You don't want to play Bomb Busters in real life. Like cutting wires and just hoping.
Ambie: Yeah, like it's fine in a board game in games. I like doing it, but I wouldn't want to do this in real life.
Crystal: So is this why you're such a chill person? Because you play so many like stress inducing games, you like get all of your any stress or anxiety that you would have as a person, you channel into these board games. And then that's why you're so chill. That's what I've now figured out.
Ambie: Oh, I'm chill. Okay, I don't know.
Crystal: You're very chill.
Ambie: Okay.
Crystal: Have you seen me? I mean, come on. Like at least the comparison between the two of us. I'd say you're very chill.
Ambie: Okay. Yeah, but like the first one I thought of was Patchwork. You're making a quilt.
Crystal: That's actually like a very artistic trade skill to like be able to do.
Ambie: Yeah, I've never made a quilt. I have sewn stuff and I actually got like a beginner's quilting quick kit thing at the fair this summer. And I was like, oh, I'll make a quilt with it. And I have that somewhere. We just moved. So it's packed. Yeah, it was, it was sitting on the chair by my sewing machine before. And then now it's somewhere packed with the sewing stuff. So yeah, I may or may not make a quilt at some point. I also want to make a quilt out of like my old t-shirts at some point. Yeah. So patchwork, you're making a patchwork quilt, which I don't really know what a patchwork quilt versus a regular quilt is.
Crystal: Generally, I feel like kind of a t-shirt quilt would probably qualify. Like to me, regular quilting generally like, and I could be entirely wrong. So quilters out there don't fill our inbox. I'm sure all the quilters that listen to our podcast, you know, like my grandma used to make quilts when she was still alive. She was a very skilled quilter and they generally had a pattern to them, like specific colors and types of fabric that repeated over. Whereas a patchwork quilt is you take whatever fabric you have and use that. And so I think a t-shirt quilt would kind of qualify as a patchwork quilt of some sort, right? Like it's not, there's no uniform look to the whole thing.
Ambie: Although like they would be all squares instead of like, well in the game patchwork, they're all like different shapes. So maybe like a patchwork quilt might like an actual fully patchwork quilt might have like different sizes of things and rectangles and squares
Crystal: That's possible.
Ambie: But yeah, quilting, nice, normal activity.
Crystal: Well, maybe if you and I do this podcast for long enough at some point in the future, when we're little old board gamer ladies, you can show off a quilt full of old board game con shirts or something. Like wouldn't that be cool? All right, Future Crystal and Ambie, that's kicking over to you now, I guess.
Crystal: All right. My first on this list is definitely a little bit more outlandish than quilting because it is the board game Castell. Which everybody knows I love the board game Castell and the theme is one of the reasons why I love it. So castelling the act of building human pyramids, I have never gotten to see it in real life and I do not think I would be good at it, but that is not the point of this list. So I think it would be really neat to be part of what is essentially a both athletic and artistic competition of creating a human pyramid and the spectacle of it. Honestly, just like I think that would be really neat to be a part of. And so in my little fantasy world, I would not be the weak link who would cause the entire thing to fall, even though in real life that probably would be the case. So they could just, yeah, I don't know, put me somewhere where I'm less important. And then all the strong guys around me can hold up all the little babies on the top of the pyramid and it would be fine. But yeah, I want to see castelling in real life at some point in the future. I genuinely want to do that. I don't have to be part of it, but in this list, I'm going to be part of the pyramid.
Ambie: All right. Next up, I was looking through browsing through my collection on BGG and then I saw Disney Animated. I haven't played this game yet, but I think the theme is a little bit fantastical because I think it involves Disney villains. But I think you are working on making producing like five classic Disney films using background art and colors and sound and stuff. But then the villains from those films are like ruining it or something. I mean, I'm not sure about that part.
Crystal: OK, yeah, we'll save some voice actors of those villains or something.
Ambie: Yeah, but it's like they're messing up your deadlines and messing things up. So I don't know about that part, but I think it'd be fun to like make a Disney movie producing a Disney movie. Although, yeah, it might be stressful if your deadlines are rushed and stuff and you have to actually vanquish the villains. I like Disney movies and I like I do, do like editing and stuff.
Crystal: I mean the art of like classic Disney animation is really quite magical, especially all of the hand drawn Disney movies. The fact that it was all hand drawn, I think for kids nowadays who are used to seeing computer animated movies, which admittedly still take a lot of skill and talent to make. I do not want to like downplay the artistic significance of those as well. But the movies that were hand drawn like frame by frame, there's something really special about that type of art and commitment. And yeah, I think that's a really good choice.
Ambie: Yeah, I know I've been to the animation studio in Burbank. I remember going and they had that the old camera that like a special camera that had the different frames. So they would have like the painted character. Yeah. Behind it was like a background and stuff. So it would show kind of like 3D and then like the watercolor background and then like the character frame would be changed. But then the background is the same and like and they film it from up there. So it's like layers and it was like pretty cool.
Crystal: When I was a kid, I don't know where my parents got it, but we had either a legitimate or a replica of a single frame from Disney movies.
Ambie: Oh yeah, I've seen those. Yeah.
Crystal: Yeah, like it was it had the background and then it had a transparency over the top of it with yeah, like the art that went on top. And I loved looking at it as a kid. And even back then, when I didn't understand the significance, it still was really neat to see.
Crystal: All right. Next up for me, while not in the realm of fantasy, would technically require time travel to actually happen. I guess I'm skirting the rules a little bit. But for me, the next board game I've chosen is World's Fair 1893, because I love fairs and festivals in general. Like state fairs are really fun, at least in the states that have big ones. Like I grew up in the Midwest and the Iowa state fair is always a blast. The idea of a world fair kind of blows my mind in general. And the 1893 World Fair specifically had so many really cool new magical things at it, which if you've played the board game, you know. And to be in attendance at an event of that scale where people from all around the world came together to look at all of these new inventions and discoveries and everything else. I would love to have been there back in time and seen that. But in lieu of that, I think it would be really neat if there was some kind of modern equivalent, like a World's Fair. I don't think that'll ever happen again, because I think it would be too much of a weird A.I. spectacle at this point, which would not be what I'm actually looking for. I just want, you know, deep fried things on sticks and lovely camaraderie, which is not what a World Fair would be. But yeah, I still think that being able to attend that event would have been really, really neat. So that was my next pick.
Ambie: Speaking of deep fried things on sticks, my next pick is a little more fantasy in that it's Kirby's Sweets Party, which is a Japanese game that I don't actually know how to play, but I own it. And I actually like put the BGG entry on there because it wasn't on board Game Geek.
Crystal: Nice.
Ambie: But I think I think the theme is that Kirby and his friends are having a sweets party, so they're baking sweets and then like having a party and I guess eating them or something.
Crystal: I mean if you bake sweets and you don't eat them, that would be a sad party.
Ambie: They're like bringing guests to eat the sweets, I think. But I'm hoping that the characters also get to eat them because I want to or maybe I could be one of the guests. Yeah, that I would be one of the guests that they're inviting. So they bake all the sweets for me and then I'm going and seeing which sweets are good. And that's yeah, because I just I love sweets. I also like Kirby, so it'd be cool meeting Kirby.
Crystal: Yep. That's not fantasy. Kirby's real. We love it. Yeah.
Ambie: So yeah, just nice, wholesome, no danger in that one other than overeating too much sugar.
Crystal: Hopefully Kirby doesn't suck you in and take all of your power.
Ambie: Yes, that's true. But as long as well, he's baking like sweets for me. So it's not like I'm stealing his cake. Like that's that's when he gets angry, right? When someone eats his cake. But if he's giving it to you, I think you should. I think I'd be fine.
Crystal: Yeah, you'll be fine.
Ambie: So that's Kirby's Sweets party.
Crystal: All right. And my last pick is going to be definitely probably the most realistic and doable of my three. And that is going to be Sagrada. While I don't think I would get to work on the actual Sagrada Familia, I do think that building a stained glass window is something that I could do in real life. Now, I know that building stained glass is a very difficult craft or hobby, but it's doable. And I've seen people like Simone Giertz on YouTube do glass work. I love Simone Giertz's content in general. But like every time I see her doing stuff with glass, I'm always like, oh, like that just looks really satisfying. Like the etching and then like the breaking it apart and then putting it all back together. I just, oh, it looks satisfying. And then it looks so beautiful when it's done. I love stained glass and I love the way the sun shines through it. So, yeah, I want to make stained glass at some point. And so that's why my last pick is Sagrada.
Ambie: My dad used to make stained glass stuff sometimes. He's made some.
Crystal: Really? That's so cool.
Ambie: So like my brother and I each had like a custom stained glass hanging thing that he made for us. I don't remember what age.
Crystal: That's fun. I had quilts made by my grandma when I was growing up. So I guess we both had crafty things from our lists. We would love to hear from you all. What board game do you wish you could do its theme in real life? The realistic ones, not the fantasy ones. So hit us up on social media or in the Blitz discord and let us know which one you would choose.
[28:22] 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. Prepare yourself for fast-paced deck building action in Grey Fox Games' new tabletop adaptation of the Vampire Survivors Video game, designed by renowned designer Emerson Matsuuchi. If you’re ready for bullet hell in board game form, learn more about the upcoming kickstarter campaign at VampireSurvivorsTheBoardgame.com. And don’t forget that Blitzketeers always get 10% off all purchases at GreyFoxGames.com, including exclusives, when you use the code BLITZ10 at checkout!
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Until next time,
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Crystal: Bye!
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