Episode 263 - KublaConning
June 11, 2026
Ambie and Crystal are joined by Ambie's kids to talk about their time at KublaCon this year! They talk about mini painting, the things they saw, and the games they played. Ambie and Crystal also talk about some games they played.
Intro: 0:00
KublaCon Recap: 0:39
Ambie's KublaCon: 14:41
Outro: 27:53
Games mentioned this episode:
Similo: 03:21, 22:30
Monikers: 07:31, 24:46 (my video on playing with kids)
Blood on the Clocktower: 09:27
Kronologic: Paris 1920: 10:06
Awkward Guests: 10:32
Turing Machine: 10:48
Castle Panic: 12:44
Bidlz: 15:34
Bomb Busters: 18:35
Alibis: 19:15
Codenames: 19:25
Wriggle Roulette: 20:37
This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Use the code "BLITZ2026" to get 10% off your entire cart.
Board Game Blitz's theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.
Transcript
[00:00:06:20 - 00:00:39:00]
Crystal: Hello and welcome to Episode 263 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes to come to grips with the announcement that we made at the end of our last episode. Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we're talking about KublaCon! Join us as we chat with two of our favorite guests who will be discussing their experience at this year's KublaCon . And now, here are your hosts...
Ambie: Ambie
Crystal: and Crystal, with special guests...
Kevin: Kevin
Crystal: and
Bob: Bob.
[00:00:39:00 - 00:00:56:15]
Kevin: Hi, I'm Kevin, and today we're going to talk about KublaCon , and I'm going to hand over the mic to Bob.
Bob: Well, I painted minis at KublaCon , a lot of minis.
Crystal: You painted a lot of minis?
Bob: Yeah, like this.
[00:00:58:01 - 00:01:02:04]
Crystal: Whoah, you painted that?!
Kevin: Uh, yeah. These are some of our minis that we painted.
[00:01:03:05 - 00:01:23:21]
Kevin: These I painted. This one is very delicate. It broke its arm. I had to get mini surgery.
Crystal: Mini surgery? Oh my goodness.
Kevin: Ambie, would you like to...
Ambie: You did a plastic surgery, right?
Kevin: No, mini surgery. I mean, yeah. And how about Ambie? What did you paint?
[00:01:23:21 - 00:01:34:06]
Ambie: Oh, I also painted a mini. I did one. They both did five each, I think. But I did this mini. It's a little like water thing. Water thing? I don't know.
Kevin: Ghost water, or ghost.
[00:01:35:22 - 00:01:40:27]
Ambie: Or maybe it was supposed to be a plant thing, but it looked kind of watery. I painted it blue.
[00:01:42:00 - 00:01:57:11]
Crystal: I have a friend here in Vegas who paints minis, and when he was over recently, he asked me if I had any minis that I wanted him to paint, and so I gave him some of my minis, and he's been painting them for me.
Ambie: Oh, nice.
Crystal: Yeah, once I have them, I'll send you guys a picture.
[00:01:57:11 - 00:02:59:20]
Kevin: So we had a big highlight, and it was the castle.
Crystal: Oh, the castle?
Kevin: Let's have Bob tell us about this giant 3D printed castle.
Bob: Well, the giant 3D castle was 3D printed. I got to meet the person who made it.
Crystal: Wow.
Bob: And then it was used for a game. There were different floors, and...
Crystal: There were different floors on the castle?
Bob: Yeah. And I saw people playing it.
Crystal: Well, that's pretty cool.
Bob: But it was very cool. And
Crystal: How big was the castle? Ooh.
Bob: I got a con-duck.
Kevin: And I'll tell you what it is. It's a joke. They said he had a good conduct, like a good behavior.
Crystal: Oh, okay.
Kevin: Con from Kubla Khan, and it's a duck from Kubla Khan, and they gave it to him. He was lucky.
Crystal: Oh, that's so neat.
[00:02:59:20 - 00:03:03:16]
Bob: It was a joke.
Crystal: For good conduct, they gave you a con-duck.
[00:03:03:16 - 00:03:13:06]
Bob: It was a joke, but that was not my favorite part. It was maybe playing the games and painting minis.
[00:03:13:06 - 00:03:16:18]
Crystal: Yeah. Painting minis is fun and painting things is fun.
[00:03:16:18 - 00:03:29:17]
Kevin: And I had a highlight. I won this game, Similo.
Crystal: You won a game?
Kevin: I won it at the kids' room, and I played it so many times.
Bob: La, la.
[00:03:29:17 - 00:03:31:19]
Crystal: Do you like Similo now?
[00:03:31:19 - 00:03:32:24]
Kevin: Yeah.
[00:03:32:24 - 00:03:36:18]
Crystal: Yeah. I've played Similo before. It's very fun.
[00:03:36:18 - 00:04:11:18]
Kevin: And at the end of this, we're going to have a special song. You might know it. I'm not sure, but let's listen to the song when we're done. And now we'll pass the mic over to Bob.
Bob: Okay. Well, one of the games I played is Similo that Kevin won.
Crystal: So do you like Similo too?
Bob: I did not win a game.
Crystal: That's okay.
Bob: But I won rare clothing.
Crystal: Ooh, you did?
Bob: A bow tie made out of Dalmatian fur.
[00:04:11:18 - 00:04:15:15]
Crystal: A bow tie made looking like a Dalmatian?
[00:04:15:15 - 00:04:36:08]
Bob: Fake. No, it's made out of Dalmatian fur. Kind of like, have you seen Cruella?
Crystal: Yeah.
Bob: The movie. She's trying to make a bow tie out of, I mean a coat out of the fur, but it's kind of like making a bow tie. Bow tie out of the fur.
Crystal: Well, that's pretty cool.
[00:04:36:08 - 00:04:40:25]
Bob: But it was fake.
Crystal: Oh, okay. That's good. Because we wouldn't want any real Dalmatians to get hurt.
[00:04:40:25 - 00:06:25:15]
Bob: How did I win it? I got Kubla coins.
Crystal: You got Kubla coins?
Bob: Yeah. To win it.
Crystal: What can you do with Kubla coins?
Bob: I bought it with Kubla.
Crystal: You bought them?
Bob: They were 3D printed.
Crystal: Oh, that's neat.
Kevin: So Kubla coins are 3D printed coins. They're not real coins, but I also got a thing, but I can't show you right now. It was like a mouse toy. It's like magnetic hands. So I had lots of fun at Kubla con. I forgot to tell you about the Kubla march. So we were going...
Crystal: What's the Kubla march?
Bob: The Mongol march.
Kevin: The Mongol march. We were going in like a Mongolian army. We went to every single dingle room and we distracted everyone. We even went in the mini painting contest room and the distraction was all for the contest of the mini painting contest. Who else like to talk right now?
Bob: Well, the Mongol march, Kubla was in it. He was helping with the distraction too, but we tried to yell Kubla and then the other people would yell Con when we're on the balcony.
Crystal: I bet you were very good at that.
Bob: No, nobody answered Con.
Crystal: No one answered?!
Bob: We were too high to hear and we weren't loud enough.
Crystal: That happens to me sometimes too.
Bob: But why is this so loud?
Kevin: And the Kubla, it was kind of like a chant. I was saying that over and over again. Let's pass the mic over to Crystal.
[00:06:25:15 - 00:06:53:02]
Crystal: Okay. Well, I've heard a lot of really neat things about it and I've been to other board game conventions and one of my favorite things about board game conventions is getting to see a whole bunch of other people who also like board games like I do. And so that's really neat because, you know, it's nice to find and meet new friends who like doing the same things that you do.
[00:06:53:02 - 00:07:42:19]
Bob: I like that too.
Kevin: I was wearing a steampunk hat. There's this lady who's wearing the same exact genre hat and I was so surprised we were wearing like a steampunk hat and another steampunk hat. She had a 3D printed dragon inside her hat.
Crystal: Whoa.
Kevin: We got to talk to some of our friends. For lunch, I had a burger with a purple cheeseburger bun. It was pretty cool. We played Monikers with my friends.
Crystal: Oh, Monikers is also very fun.
Kevin: Yeah.
Bob: Well, I like Monikers just like Kevin and now I'm going to pass it over to Ambie.
[00:07:42:19 - 00:07:53:22]
Ambie: Yeah, Monikers was fun. We played a co-op version because that's all they've ever played. And I have like filtered out the family friendly cards in our deck. There is a Monikers family, which I should get. I don't know if it's still available.
[00:07:55:04 - 00:07:56:29]
Crystal: I mean, if you can filter out stuff, then it's just kind of fine, right?
[00:07:56:29 - 00:07:57:24]
Ambie: Yeah, I guess.
[00:07:57:24 - 00:08:01:20]
Ambie: But I think like, the descriptions-
Crystal: Although I think the topics might be easier probably.
Ambie: Yeah.
[00:08:01:20 - 00:08:06:18]
Kevin: So, Crystal, do you think you can do this? I think you can.
[00:08:06:18 - 00:08:15:00]
Crystal: Okay, hold on. Let me see if I can turn my tongue sideways just like you did. I'm going to try. Anybody watching on YouTube will get to see it. So here we go.
[00:08:16:15 - 00:08:27:08]
Kevin: You taught me how to do that.
Crystal: I did?.
Kevin: Yeah.
Crystal: Oh, yeah. The little hand trick.
Kevin: And this. And, uh, yeah. Let's see.
[00:08:27:08 - 00:08:31:23]
Kevin: Who wants to talk?
Crystal: Do you want to hear something else funny that I learned to do when I was a kid?
[00:08:31:23 - 00:08:32:06]
Kevin & Bob: What?
[00:08:32:06 - 00:08:39:21]
Crystal: When I was a kid, I learned to talk in a really funny voice like this.
Kevin: What?
Bob: Like what?
Crystal: That was me.
[00:08:40:22 - 00:08:44:21]
Crystal: That's Crystal talking. That's what I sound like when I'm using my funny voice
[00:08:44:21 - 00:08:47:06]
Kevin: Who is she talking like?
[00:08:47:06 - 00:09:09:11]
Crystal: Just a silly voice.
Bob: How? How?
Kevin: Do you hear it?
Crystal: It's hard to do. I just have to like, it's something that happens in my throat and I've never really been able to describe it very well, but I kind of like tighten up the back of my throat. And then it just sounds different when I talk. So you guys will have to work on that one for next time.
[00:09:09:11 - 00:09:13:11]
Kevin: Yeah. And, uh
Bob: *noises* like that?
[00:09:13:11 - 00:09:16:14]
Crystal: Oh, that's pretty good. That's, you're already getting there.
[00:09:17:16 - 00:09:23:24]
Ambie: Yeah. Any other games we played? We didn't play that many games. We did mostly mini painting. I played some games separately from the kids.
[00:09:23:24 - 00:09:29:13]
Kevin: I really wanted to play Blood on the Clocktower.
Ambie: Yes.
[00:09:29:13 - 00:09:49:15]
Ambie: So they had, they had some separate rooms of Blood on the Clocktower running the whole convention. They have like Blood on the Clocktower rooms and yeah, we kept walking by and they have like, it looks really cool because they have like candles lit, set up and the big book and the people were dressed up for it. Yeah. So, so Kevin really wanted to play, but no.
Crystal: Well, maybe, maybe when
[00:09:49:15 - 00:09:52:14]
Crystal: you're a little bit older, you'll get to play Blood on the Clocktower.
[00:09:52:14 - 00:09:55:26]
Ambie: Well, it's a very long game and...
Crystal: yeah, it's, it's hard.
[00:09:55:26 - 00:10:03:05]
Crystal: Even I'm not very good at Blood on the Clocktower. Well, why don't you ask your mommy, Why don't you ask your mommy what games she played?
[00:10:03:05 - 00:10:05:02]
Kevin: What was your favorite game?
[00:10:05:02 - 00:11:38:02]
Ambie: So I got to try Kronologic: 1920 Paris. I think there's multiple in the series. So I think the one we did was Kronologic: 1920 Paris. This is a deduction game. It's not cooperative. It's so it's like Clue kind of, but like there's a room layout and you're trying to figure out what, uh, there's six hours and people, six different people or something and six different times and different rooms. And you have to figure out which people are in which rooms at which time. So the way you do clues,
Crystal: Kind of similar to Awkward Guests.
Ambie: Kind of, but better because I don't like Awkward Guests. There's like... Awkward Guests had too much luck and like you don't always get information. And there are times when like I got no information, but here you always will get information on your turn because you can actually ask a question and get answers. But it's made by the person who made Turing Machine.
Crystal: Oh, nice.
Ambie: So it has as the info, it has like a card that you put over. So you're asking like the person and the room. And so like the person has like little holes in it, something like that. And then the room is like the card and then you overlap it and it says like, Oh, the person was in the room three times or something. And so there's going to be information that you tell everyone. So you say, okay, this person was in the room three times. And then it has hidden information. One of those times was two o'clock. Yeah. So that was fun. And there's also different scenarios. So I think there's like four or five cases in each scenario. And so we did two of them. And so the first scenario was like, you have to find whoever poisoned the person. And it was like the person who was alone in the room with them. There was only like one other person alone with them in the room. And then the second scenario was a Phantom of the Opera. So you have to find whoever was always alone. So that was neat. It's like different types of...
[00:11:38:02 - 00:11:47:11]
Crystal: You're making me very much want to play this because I love the system of Turing Machine. So yeah. What board games have you guys been playing at home recently?
[00:11:47:11 - 00:12:07:06]
Kevin: Oh, so I haven't been being a really big board game fan.
Crystal: Okay.
Kevin: But the only thing I really like to do is art. That's all I did most or mini painting. I'll hand the mic over to Ambie, Bob or Crystal.
Crystal: Okay.
[00:12:07:06 - 00:12:10:06]
Ambie: So we've played some board games, right? We've done a lot of escape room games.
[00:12:10:06 - 00:12:20:22]
Kevin: I think Crystal should go next.
Bob: No, Bob.
Crystal: No, Crystal.
Bob: Bob.
Crystal: What should I talk about?
Kevin: You should talk about maybe some board games or like stuff.
Crystal: Okay.
[00:12:20:22 - 00:12:52:22]
Crystal: Well, I recently got to play a game called Please Don't Burn My Village!, which is about dragons. You're trying to make sure that you get the right treasure and that all the other people get the wrong treasure and that your treasure is worth the most at the end. And it's pretty fun. And it's set in the same world as the game Castle Panic, which is a pretty fun game too. And so I really enjoyed playing that one. And you know, I like anything with dragons.
[00:12:52:22 - 00:13:01:16]
Bob: Well, the games that I played, I sometimes get angry when I don't win. And that's why I don't play games.
[00:13:01:16 - 00:13:50:10]
Crystal: Well, you know what? It's okay to feel angry sometimes, especially if you really want to win a game. But do you know why it's okay to lose at games? I can tell you there's a really good reason. So here's the thing. If you played games and you won every single time and you never lost ever, that would get kind of boring because you would always do the same thing and there would never be any drama or tension. So when you lose in a game, that can actually be a fun thing because it means next time when you win, it'll feel even better than if you had won every time. It'll make that win more special because you lost before. So sometimes losing can be a good thing.
[00:13:50:10 - 00:13:53:17]
Kevin: Always, once in a while you win!
[00:13:53:17 - 00:13:54:18]
Bob: No.
[00:13:55:18 - 00:14:14:25]
Crystal: You know what? I also sometimes like losing at games because then if I lose, it means one of my friends or somebody that I love gets to win. And then I get to celebrate with them. I can say, "Yay, good job. You won the game." And that makes me happy when people that I love are happy too.
[00:14:14:25 - 00:14:17:18]
Bob: I don't like losing at all.
[00:14:19:11 - 00:14:23:21]
Crystal: Well, you know what? When you get older, it'll be a little bit easier to lose sometimes.
[00:14:23:21 - 00:14:26:12]
Kevin: Every once in a while, you can win.
[00:14:26:12 - 00:14:37:13]
Crystal: Yeah, for sure. That's what's great about it is sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But as long as everybody is having fun, that's the most important part.
[00:14:41:16 - 00:14:47:21]
Ambie: Okay, so I do have some more KublaCon stuff to talk about without the kids since they didn't let me talk about what games I played.
[00:14:47:21 - 00:14:52:15]
Crystal: I mean, yeah, when they're on the show, it's all about them. And really, I can't blame them. They're pretty cute.
[00:14:52:15 - 00:14:58:25]
Ambie: Yeah, so I did mention I got to play Kronologic: Paris 1920. That was my favorite new to me game.
[00:14:58:25 - 00:15:01:09]
Crystal: You've gotten me interested in that one for sure.
[00:15:01:09 - 00:15:38:24]
Ambie: Yeah, that was fun. Then I also got to play... I went to the Protospiel room. So KublaCon has a Protospiel room in one of the corners, or like off in the hallway. But they have like a bunch of designers with upcoming games and prototypes and stuff. And then people can go in and play. And they have like drawings and raffles and stuff. If you play, I guess you get a raffle ticket. I didn't get any because like I played on Friday before they had like everything set up. And then like at night on Saturday, we just played like a short game. But I got to play one that I liked is called Bidlz, B-I-D-L-Z,
Crystal: Ooh, that's an interesting name.
Ambie: which is almost an anagram of blitz, but not quite.
[00:15:40:22 - 00:16:21:05]
Ambie: But yes, Biddles designed by Zac Burns. It's a auction game where you're racing to build a word. And I posted this in the Discord, but like you're auctioning for letter cards. You do a blind auction. You all reveal simultaneously, but then the person who wins the auction has to pay the amount that the second highest person bid. So not what you bid, but the second highest person. Everyone else pays nothing. And if there's a tie, no one gets the card and no one pays anything. Also, if you bid zero, you get one coin. So like you're trying to see like, if you don't want the letter, like do you want to bid some to make sure that other people have to pay to get it? Or do you want to bid zero and just get a coin? But then like if no one bids anything else, then that person is just going to get it for free.
[00:16:21:05 - 00:16:24:02]
Crystal: Oh, that is interesting.
[00:16:24:02 - 00:16:40:13]
Ambie: Yeah. But then it's kind of like a race. So you're bidding to get these letters and then whoever can spell a five letter word the fastest wins. I played at four player and at two player. It was a lot better at four player than two player. I think with two player, it didn't feel it wasn't as interesting with the bidding because like you never want to bid zero.
[00:16:40:13 - 00:16:45:20]
Crystal: Yeah. Well, like most auction or bidding style games don't work at a really small player count.
Ambie: Yeah.
Crystal: That makes sense.
[00:16:45:20 - 00:16:53:20]
Ambie: Yeah. And then also at more players, there's a secret letter. So we had one secret letter behind our screen. And so people didn't know what letter that was.
[00:16:54:26 - 00:17:56:14]
Ambie: So they're not actually sure if you're close to spelling a word. I ended up spelling a word without using my secret letter, but the other people didn't actually realize that the words I had, or the letters I had could make a word. So...
Crystal: What word did you spell?
Ambie: I think it was touch. So I had OUT, I think, and then CH came out and then I bid for that in one. But like because I had OUT in that order, it took me a while to figure that out because my secret letter was E. So I was thinking route. If an R comes out, I can do that. And then CH came out, I'm like, "huh, choute." I'm like, "no, that doesn't work." And I'm like, "wait, oh, I can do touch. That would work." And then the last one, I just bid all of my coins. And then I won. And that was another thing. Like I ended up bidding up all of my coins at the end, which like in a two player game, you can tell. And then it's just like, okay, and kind of anticlimactic. But in the four player game, like because of the secret letter or because people just didn't realize they didn't know when I was going to bid all my things. So yeah, it was interesting. And it was like a family friendly bidding game. It's like only 15 minutes long. So that was Bidlz, coming out later this year, I think.
[00:17:56:14 - 00:18:00:00]
Crystal: Oh, nice. So it's been picked up by like a publisher already?
Ambie: It might be.
[00:18:00:00 - 00:18:12:00]
Crystal: Or is it to be self published?
Ambie: It might be like a self publisher thing. I think he has his own publishing company.
Crystal: Oh nice.
Ambie: But it was like he had a pre-production copy. Like it was by the manufacturer thing. Like it was...
Crystal: Okay.
[00:18:13:01 - 00:18:15:08]
Ambie: Pretty much looking like it was done.
[00:18:15:08 - 00:18:20:05]
Crystal: Yay. Well, I want it. So he's already got somebody to.. that'll buy it.
[00:18:20:05 - 00:18:53:12]
Ambie: Yeah, you could sign up for notification on the website for when the game releases at Bidlz.com.
Crystal: Ooh.
Ambie: All right. And then I also got to play... For Sunday night, Toby and I went, his mom watched the kids while they were sleeping. And we went back, we played some Bomb Busters with friends. But then we were about to leave. But then we saw in the lobby, there was someone like doing a Party Palooza. So she had a bunch of party games out. And so she waved us over like, "Oh, do you want to play some party games?" And so we stopped and we're looking and someone else recognized us, I guess. And they're like, "Oh, these are the 18XX people."
[00:18:54:28 - 00:19:10:12]
Crystal: Okay, that's funny.
Ambie: And I was actually wearing like one of my 18XX shirts with Hexy on it. And then she's like, "Oh yeah, I could tell." But then the person who was mentioning 18XX, he didn't want to play party games. And then we're like, "But oh, party games are fun." And so we went and played. Yeah.
[00:19:10:12 - 00:19:13:25]
Crystal: Basically, you're like, "18XX gamers like other things too."
[00:19:15:03 - 00:19:18:09]
Ambie: I got to play Alibis, which you have played, I think.
[00:19:18:09 - 00:19:22:20]
Crystal: Yeah, I talked about it on the podcast. I got a review copy from Allplay, a while back. I really enjoyed it.
[00:19:22:20 - 00:19:54:27]
Ambie: Yeah, so Alibis from Allplay. It's like Codenames where you're thinking of matches for clues, but it's all cooperative. And every person has to think of a match for two words. And you don't get to pick which words. Like you all get two words that you're doing. And then you have to think of a match. And then everyone else is guessing simultaneously which words each person's two clues point to. And then there's one clue left over and it's very hard.
Crystal: It is difficult.
Ambie: Yeah, we played three players. So each person actually gets two sets of two clues to write down. But yeah, it was hard. Gosh, we did not do very well.
[00:19:54:27 - 00:20:29:16]
Crystal: I do find that in that game, similar to Codenames, that for me personally, this doesn't work for everybody, but working backwards works better for me. So if somebody's like, "Oh, I think that this clue points to this and this." My brain immediately goes, "Okay, if they had been given that and that, like you said...
Ambie: Oh yeah yeah, I do that for Codenames too.
Crystal: is this the clue that they would have come up with?" Because most of the time the answer is no, that doesn't make sense. And so trying to go, "Okay, which two cards would that make sense for?" That helps me in both of those games, working it kind of backwards.
[00:20:29:16 - 00:20:40:03]
Ambie: Yeah, yeah. I've done that for Codenames. I do that for Codenames all the time. Yeah, so that was fun. And then also I got to play a Oink game called Wriggle Roulette. This came out in 2025.
[00:20:40:03 - 00:20:48:21]
Crystal: This is one of the ones I want to play. I've heard of this one. Yeah, there's like a few Oink games that I don't know yet that I really want to play, and this is one of them.
[00:20:48:21 - 00:21:54:29]
Ambie: So this is like a push your luck game, like a combined push your luck game. There's a bag of snakes and eels. So they're little wooden curvy things that are the same shape, but different colors. There's red and blue. You're trying to pull out them out of the bag. Everyone pulls out like, we played a three player game, so everyone could pull out zero to four. In different player counts, there's different numbers that you can pull out. You can do zero up to four. So you pick how many you pull out, and then you reveal simultaneously. And then if there were- in a three player game, it's seven or more red ones, the snakes, then you bust. And whoever had the most that they pulled out that turn, they have to put all of their eels back in and they don't get any points. But everyone else gets to score their eels. But you're like cumulative. Like if it doesn't bust yet, you put them down. The snakes are still cumulative. You have like four snakes or whatever, and then you pull again. So if you have some eels down and it hasn't busted yet, if you pull zero, then you get to bank those and you won't lose them. But otherwise, if you keep like pressing your luck and stuff, you're going to lose them if you're the one who pulls the most when you bust. And if you tie for most, you both lose them, I think. So yeah, I kept doing that. Tying for the most.
Crystal: Oh no.
[00:21:56:02 - 00:22:12:06]
Ambie: With the alternating two people. I had a lot lower score than everyone than the other two. But yeah, it's interesting because like the cooperative press your luck, like Quacks of Quedlinburg type, like pulling out of a bag. But it's not cooperative. Everyone's adding to it kind of. So that was a nice push your luck game. Quick game too.
[00:22:12:06 - 00:22:18:21]
Crystal: Yeah, I feel like that's one that I'll definitely add to my collection at some point. I had read about it and I was like, that definitely sounds like my jam.
[00:22:18:21 - 00:22:44:00]
Ambie: Yeah. So that was it. I think other than like the kids games, we played some other kids games in the young player room. The young player room was nice again. We spent most of our time there and doing painting. But yeah, I was surprised by Similo. Kevin mentioned this. We had played some other games, but like this was the one he liked the most out of the games we played there. And I had kind of played Similo online before. It's a cooperative game. You have like a grid of picture cards.
[00:22:44:00 - 00:23:03:15]
Crystal: One card is secretly selected and the person who is giving clues knows what that card is. And then is trying to get the other players to eliminate the rest of the cards by giving clues and narrow it down. So eventually they know what the correct card is, but you can't point to the correct card.
[00:23:03:15 - 00:23:43:24]
Ambie: And they're giving clues with other cards. We played the Jurassic World version. So I had a bunch of dinosaurs and like you use the cards to point to similarities. So like if I have them guessing a Pteranodon or something, I might say it's similar to another flying dinosaur or something, or it's different from one has four legs or something like, why I'm just putting it down. And then everyone else has to like figure out why and interpret that. So it was fun. And Kevin was giving clues and doing a really good job. We like, we were just playing like two player a lot, me and Kevin. Yeah, we did pretty well. So that was, even though neither of us really know much about dinosaurs. So just by looking at the pictures,
[00:23:43:24 - 00:24:21:03]
Crystal: that's what's nice about Similo though, is you don't have necessarily like if you know, because there's like fairy tale version of similar and some other stuff. And if you know the source material and the other players you're playing with also do, you can use that information. But the thing is, since you're, you're not saying anything out loud, you're just putting the cards down as a light is similar to or dissimilar to, then it's just a matter of interpreting what the person was trying to convey. And it could just be the background color on the card. It might not be anything related to like,
Ambie: Yeah, I used that.
Crystal: oh, no, that's, I mean, that's a great way... If you have nothing better or whatever else, like, that's a great way to give clues in that game.
[00:24:21:03 - 00:24:42:17]
Ambie: Because it's also like Dixit and Mysterium, where it's like you have the hand of cards, so you might not have something that you want. But it also has like little description things in fine print on each card. Like here it says Omnivore, Cretaceous period, like a description of what it is if you read the fine print. But I did not play with that because my kid can't read that well.
[00:24:44:18 - 00:24:46:08]
Crystal: I was surprised that they played Monikers.
[00:24:46:08 - 00:25:17:22]
Ambie: Oh, yes. So they love Monikers. I've made a video on YouTube about that. It's like a "I've house ruled Monikers to play with them" because it's just, I've played with them. And like at first I played where I was giving clues and then they would guess and then I would do it all and they would guess and we just go through a few cards. But then I made some words that they could read easily. And then like recently they're able to read the words that I had picked out. I had filtered through like the whole Monikers deck to find ones that they know and are like appropriate.
[00:25:18:26 - 00:25:21:02]
Crystal: Yeah
Ambie: Which was like not that many cards.
[00:25:21:02 - 00:25:26:22]
Crystal: Anybody who's played regular Monikers before knows that not all of the things in that game are friendly for children.
Ambie: Yeah.
[00:25:26:22 - 00:25:30:06]
Ambie: Also, a lot of things are like very obscure so they wouldn't be able to guess it.
[00:25:30:06 - 00:25:36:16]
Crystal: Oh, yeah, like completely random people from history that like even adults have probably never heard of.
[00:25:36:16 - 00:26:09:26]
Ambie: Yeah. So Toby was helping them read when we were at the convention and I actually asked that they wanted to play with teams because we had a bunch of people our friends were there. And then they're like, "no, I want to play the way we always play." So we were just alternating and then it was like, "when's it my turn? Is it my turn?" Because they're used to going when we only play three players. Yeah, we had like eight people, but they did manage they did get around and do the acting part, which is the part they like the most anyway. So they were guessing well, too. We've used these same, like we have maybe like 60 or 70 words that we've done a lot. So they know all the words.
[00:26:09:26 - 00:26:40:16]
Crystal: That's fun, though. Well, I'm glad you guys such had such a fun time at KublaCon. It's neat to hear them talk about their experiences each year. Just obviously they're getting older and they're getting more verbose and they're able to do more. And it's really neat to get to hear that from them. Obviously, I love hearing about the conventions from you, but I don't have young children. My bonus kids are 16 and 20. So yeah, I yeah, it's really neat to get to talk to them about that stuff.
[00:26:40:16 - 00:26:53:10]
Ambie: Yeah, they like board game conventions. It's funny, like at school, the crossing guard was gone one day and she said she went to a convention and then my kid was like, "a board game convention?" So like they think conventions are board game conventions.
[00:26:53:10 - 00:26:58:15]
Crystal: Yeah, I mean, that if hey, if I'm them, that was what I would think.
[00:27:01:00 - 00:27:46:17]
Crystal: Someday I'm going to be talking about some like light bulb convention that's happening in Vegas or whatever. And they're going to be like, what? I don't know if there's a light bulb convention. I know there's a garage door convention because Geoff Engelstein, he's a very jack of all trades kind of dude in case people were not aware about that. And he comes to Vegas for a bunch of different things. And one of them is related to garage doors somehow. I don't quite remember what that is exactly. But there's a convention in Vegas for just about everything you can imagine.
Ambie: Yeah, makes sense.
Crystal: And he and his wife actually bought a condo out here not too long ago. I get to see them more often, which is very fun because I love hanging out with Geoff and his wife.
Ambie: Nice.
Crystal: Yeah, we did karaoke together kind of recently. And that was super fun.
[00:27:46:17 - 00:27:49:08]
Ambie: Oh, we need to do karaoke when I visit.
[00:27:49:08 - 00:27:53:01]
Crystal: Oh, yeah, we're absolutely going to do karaoke when you visit.
[00:27:53:01 - 00:27:53:24]
Ambie: Yes.
[00:27:55:00 - 00:28:48:11]
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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Until next time,
Kevin: I have a dice, I have a meeple,
Uh! Meeple-dice
Bye everyone!
Everyone: Bye!
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