Triforce! - Triforce! #128: Everything Has a Mini

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

Triforce! Episode 128! Sips is worried he might be a psychopath, Pyrion's been playing some real old school games while Lewis is playing some new board games! Visit http://expressvpn.com/triforce to get an extra 3 months of ExpressVPN for free! Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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the Chai Force podcast. Coming at you from week 10 of the lockdown where we all now have to stay alert. Yeah, stay safe. What's that noise? coming at you from week 10 of the lockdown where we knew where we all now have to stay alert yeah stay safe uh yeah that was that noise you passed the test flax you're alert enough thank you yeah yeah get your karate costumes on yeah and just just be ready for anything just get ready to rock and roll because you never know when yep you never know when the shit's gonna hit the fan you want to have a welding mask on for when that happens.

Yeah. It needs ultimate protection. Get in the ring. Yeah. Get yourself creased up. Just get yourself ready to wrestle with anyone who tries to come close. Just push them out of your ring. I am ready.

This is a nice topic that you mentioned because recently... Wrestling. Well, yeah, it's topical. Stop me watching wrestling. No, it's topical for me, though, because recently I've been questioning whether or not I've been going insane or not during this lockdown. I didn't really think that the lockdown affected me too much. You know what I mean? I didn't really think that the lockdown affected me too much.

You know what I mean? Like I thought I was above it all because I've kind of been living like this for the past eight or so years anyway. So it's, it's no different for me. But I've been playing Fallout 4 with a lot of mods recently. And I'd say the bulk of my playtime recently has been pitting people together for gladiator style combat. I made an arena where I forced my settlers to fight to the death. And once one of them dies, I have this whole series of machines ready to process their bodies and all of their belongings into junk and meat. And then I've got another mod that

is able to can the meat into like soylent green, which gets deposited into a bath. And I'm not even joking. I spend like about eight hours a day doing this. And then even sometimes at night, I come out and try to like refine the process a little bit more. And I just had this like weird epiphany yesterday where I was like, I'd stop what i was doing and just think what the fuck am i doing like why am i why am i spending so much time on this so much why am i enjoying this so much yeah uh it's like the the machine that that sort of dismantles a human being in this game makes this really odd squelching sound somebody in twitch chat likened it to fisting a bowl of custard uh that's the kind of sound it makes and you know you just see like meat come out the other end and like you know it sounds awesome sounds horrible sorry yeah it's

weird and then but this is like anyone describing their rimWorld saves. We've been there. Sure, yeah. That's true. So I was starving to death, and my dog bit my leg off, but then I killed my dog. I had to eat the meat, and then another man came, and he killed me, and then he was my main set, and he ate the man who had one leg,

and then he chopped his own dick off and ate it. And that's just like in the game. That's like nothing, right? Sure. So I don't think you have to worry about whether or not you're turning into some insane psychopath, dictator, lunatic in Fallout 4. We know that's happening. You're doing that.

Well, that's exactly what's happening. Maybe it's one of those things where like, just playing it by default makes you insane sort of thing. If you were playing it in like a fairy world imagine if it was all like instead of chopping up instead of gladiatorial combat imagine you were like i don't know fight like like having flowers right like kiss each other yeah and then the one that fell asleep you put in a lovely bed yeah and um it got processed into die no No, hang on. No, never mind. Do you know what I mean?

If it was like, because you can see this stuff, right? Every game has like soft mode, you know, where blood is replaced by rainbow splatters. Oh, sure, yeah. And people don't die, they go to sleep and all this. Remember the early Mortal Kombat games when they came out on the Super Nintendo and they replaced the blood with like sand or like sweat you'd punch a guy and like in the

arcade version there was like big they looked like big like splotches of ketchup or something flying out of them there's blood everywhere but they've always had to do these yeah they have some regulator or some um esrb rater saying oh this is going to be at 18 unless you replace the blood with fairy dust but listen do you think um so okay so it's a pg then i've told you you're still punching people in the face or running people over you know i mean like in gta gta i mean gta was originally going to be banned a lot because you were actually driving a car and running like, just running down pedestrians in the street. You know, my brother plays GTA all the time. Right.

Even now, he loves it. He loves running people over and shooting prostitutes. What's his name and where does he live? I don't want to, what if he's like, what if he's going crazy during the lockdown as well and he just decides to go postal? He's doing great during the lockdown. His normal life is pretty shit because he's got a real job on the railways. He has to drive out to these places and trudge around and fucking watch out for trains coming. And it's pretty hard work. And he's had to do it for like 20 years now. Jeez.

Getting there because he left school at 15 right um to work on the rails he's been yeah he's been working on the railways for the 20 years now um and it's crazy to think that that's the thing and it's it's well i'll say somebody's got to do it i mean but it's kind of like a hard job and people get like you know like you can imagine if you're a fisherman or something like that so that's a hard job that's like you know you see these old fishermen and they look fucking knackered when they've been on the boats yeah they're all weathered and stuff they all have like yeah and they always have lozenges too right like but like a hickory pipe as well which so i'm not sure about my brother's angle i feel like he's looking better than ever he's had like a good good couple of

weeks four weeks six six eight weeks off all right so listen listen he's looking better than ever. He's had like a good couple of weeks, four weeks, six, eight weeks off. All right. So listen, listen. Yeah, he's having a great time doing his house. I've told you my dark secret about the kind of mods that I use in Fallout. But what do you think is worse? Do you think those are worse?

Or do you think the ones where like, there's a lot of mods for Fallout 4, as you can imagine, being a game that features human beings and stuff like that so of course it lends itself that there's lots of mods to um nudity for example provide shaved pussies for all of the female companions good lord you know fully nude mods all that kind of stuff i don't have any of those i'm not really interested in those because i just watch porn or whatever but um do you think it's who does do you think it's somebody to download those mods than it is to

download mods to do with processing humans into edible yours are worse yours are obviously worse okay no no no no no no no no no right So what is worse, though, also, like loot boxes in Overwatch. What if you only play Overwatch and spend all your money on loot boxes? And it's this mindless grind versus a game like Fallout where, yeah, albeit you are building a hell machine, at least it's using your… I neglected to mention as well, there's area uh behind glass where the bones of all these people drop into so there's just this gigantic container full of bones called called the bone zone and it makes this really gross clickety clacking sound constantly because the

physics are like a bit bugged so there's like i would say there's got to be about a hundred people's worth of bones in there. And anytime you walk by this thing, all you hear is like, clack, clickety clack, clack, clack, you know what I mean? It's something like out of a shitty AES horror film. In what way is inevitably people fancying female representations of video game characters, you know, mainly because the most of the people playing games uh like that are dudes right young dudes so they want to have all the nude mods and stuff like i don't know i think the demographic is i don't think i don't think 18 year olds are installing nude mods i just wouldn't i i don't know how i would i you know what i mean like i

would feel uncomfortable playing those mods whereas i don't somehow feel uncomfortable i think it's because if you get caught with those kind of noob mods it's like really like you're into this that's what i mean like it's creepy but yeah that's what i'm saying definitely disturbing and i i think one is more expected and understood than the other and yours to me is really quite disturbing right okay no no to me it's not at all to me it's like you're playing a kind of more fun version of satisfactory where you're just building like a cool machine yeah you're using your engage you're using your brain you're using your brain to like set up a production line like if you were working today

if you were growing up today in, I don't know, China, let's just say China, where they're trying to automate everything, and they have all these young kids, and they bring them in, and they're like, okay, you three genius whiz kids are going to make this factory that employs a thousand people. You're going to build some crazy little Raspberry Pi auto machine video recognition technology that will automatically do the job of a human who had to do it by hand and was fallible and terrible and slow yeah yeah and also hated the job you're going to replace these people who had terrible crappy horrible jobs with

machines yeah you this is what we need sips we need these these thinkers you know if you imagine if you work in a meat packing factory factory, the bone zone would be perfect. Imagine if you get a pig, put him through the bone zone, no bones anymore, bam, jelly pig, and then just sell that fucking thing. Someone will put it in the oven. You could do it with piglets. That would be delicious

because the meat's a lot more tender on piglets. Yeah, right. I stand corrected. This all sounds so much more sane when you put it that way. There's another mod called the InniFix, which fixes those troublesome outie vaginas in the wasteland to innies instead, which is much more pleasing to the eye or whatever. There's a whole mod. So I thought you were talking about belly buttons. No, there's a whole.

That was my first assumption, but then I realized. There's a whole mod so i thought you were talking about belly button no there's a whole that was my first assumption but then i realized there's a whole mod for for just that as well i'm i'm i still think like i get what you're saying flax but i don't think i'm i'm the sickest person out there in terms of oh i'm not saying you're the sickest person out there i'm just saying that what you're doing is colossal reprehensible mod there's like all these like new like sexy power armors and stuff and like man i i wouldn't be caught dead with those i mean i uninstall them every time i go to stream just in case people see but um you know i mean like what if like my wife walked in and she's like hey what are you playing oh uh oh geez and i i just installed like the any mod for fault you know what i mean like

it's just kind of weird i i just feel it's kind of weird even if i didn't have a wife like what if like my mom walked in and asked me what i was playing or like my kid brother or like my older you know what i mean like i wouldn't want anyone to catch me like playing with those mods however i don't have a problem with people hey what are you playing ah you know i'm just processing some meat here i'm just killing a bunch of people and or well they're killing themselves and then i'm turning them into canned meat i don't i don't have a problem with that somehow i don't know i think it's the amount of time you've spent and this is how long has this been going on for oh weeks like weeks like some days like like we just, some days. Well, I mean, I've got a whole Twitch chat that are like along for the journey as well.

I'm sure they're loving it. Well, they get to bet on the fights and stuff. Yeah, it's great. It's great. I'm just saying. We got champions. You're also doing this off stream, aren't you? Well, I got to do like some setup and stuff.

What are you doing? What are you doing, P-Flex? Playing Dota? Ooh. Ooh. What's worse? What's worse? to do like some setup and stuff what are you doing what are you doing pflex playing dota oh what's worse what's worse oh come on i mean dota's uh respect what are you talking about dota's become a now like uh like uh like you know like a fine traditional gentleman's esport right it's been around for so long i feel it's like you know have you tried the um very respectable new sort of one lane version that the guys um is it what's it called is that what it's called path of guardians or something like that yes so i play that all the time uh we love it do you oh

that's the one you got to do like gambling for right no no no it's what turbo mode should have been all right listen i don't know if you're playing the same one actually or talking about the same one the one lewis is talking about has a gambling element to it where you have where you can like bet on results and you get more money to upgrade and stuff no no this is that this is just 3v3 there's only a mid lane the map is slightly different and you just have to you it's like crazy amounts of money that you get yeah and you level up very quickly and so i know that shannon uh aka suns fan and um a bunch of other guys at um uh cinema cinema made this like neil and guys like that and it's brilliant because you can play a

game in like 15 minutes like if it goes past that it's like wow you can play a game in like 15 minutes. Like if it goes past that, it's like, wow, you know, this is the longest game of Pog ever sort of thing. Like it's a quick game. It's fun. And the main reason they made it is so that you can try out heroes you'd never normally get the chance to play in a real game because you're like, oh, you know, I don't want to risk it. Like I've never really played Leshrac much.

Played thousands and thousands of hours, thousands of games. But there are certain heroes that I'm just like not comfortable picking because i know that it would take me 10 or 20 or 30 hours to even get halfway competent at that hero um and i tend to you know pick the same kind of things and stuff like that whereas in pog i can play whatever the fuck i want and i can try out all kinds of different item builds and see what's effective and practice those heroes and that was something they really wanted to do and dota has not had that forever it's been nearly 10 years and that's never existed yeah i'm so happy it's a really fun it's a really fun game yeah i i i was gonna give it a go um actually as well because i think it's something that it's like dota with the i don't know it feels

a little bit more like you're interacting with other people too, because oftentimes you play Dota and you're either solo in a safe lane or solo in the jungle or solo in the mid, and other people are there on your team, but they're not necessarily interacting with you for the first half an hour of the game. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean,

if I'm streaming Dota and I'm playing as a carry, which doesn't happen that often, but on the occasions that I do, for the first 20 minutes of the game and much of the rest of the game it's just me hitting creeps like i've won games of dirt where i've had loads of farm and i've got three kills because it's only at the end that we're so big they were like well all right yeah i'll just come and we'll just win because you know i've reached that carry status where at this point my hero is essentially unkillable and we can win. And as a streamer, you're thinking, is this entertaining?

Is it fun to watch someone just going whack, whack, whack and just acquiring money? And much of the time I would have to say no, it is not. So I tend to play initiators and team fight stuff because it's more fun to watch. I've been playing this week, I've been playing a board game called Arkham Horror. Oh yeah. And I'm playing it after I played a game called Eldritch Horror

which is made by the same people. And also, it's made by the same people who made Mansions of Madness and they've got the same characters. It's fantasy flight games. It's like a, kind of a series.

Mansions of Madness is kind of a board game with an app which you guys have played, I think, where you, the app sort of tells you what to do

and spawns enemies. It's set in the kind of Cthulhu mythos universe of all of that eldritch spookiness in Arkham, in Massachusetts, in 19, I don't know, 25, whenever it is. And I don't know much about that setting, and I'm not very good putting myself in it. It's a setting you know and i don't know much about that setting and i'm not very good putting myself in it it's something it's a setting which i would like to get into but i just haven't been exposed to enough the interwar years yeah yeah and it's you know what it is it's

the kind of the kind of noir detectives and the sexy dilettantes and um i don't know trumpet playing guys do you know what i mean kind? It's kind of a very unique setting. Anyway, I've been playing these games because they're co-op. They've got very good automated systems to have players play together against them, or they've got campaigns. Right. And so part of the game, because it's co-op,

and because of that, not only is the game because it's co-op and because of that like not only are is the game very heavily campaign based i.e there's 20 or 30 different stories like little dnd adventures to play through with your friends um but also like there's a load of fan-made ones i found um like a stranger things one and a batman one and a few other silly ones um but it's like a little the one i've been playing at the moment is a what's called a living card game um and obviously i'm super into card games you know always have been and this and this is um rather than a collectible one which is just random packs like magic the gathering or hearthstone um it's it's a living

card so all you have to do is buy the expansions and then it's like a building game, and if you buy all of the expansions, you have all the cards. And so you don't have to buy booster packs or trade or do any of that crap. And you could just use other people's stuff and share. Anyway, there's a really good tabletop sim mod for it. So you don't even have to buy any of the cards, which is nice. And all I've done all week is just look at the stats and be like, oh, this card would do this. And then I've occasionally played a few games with different people.

We did a few adventures. And it just felt like a really good way to play games. It was engaging my brain, but also it was against an opponent. I've played a few other ballgames that were more versus as well this week. And I didn't enjoy them as much. I felt like when I'm playing against humans they're very smart and they keep tricking me like i played against i played a game against ben um this week a natural gamer that lad can a natural gamer and every fucking turn he would outsmart me with some shit. And I was like, fuck, I did not plan for this.

I had these crossbows that were able to move backwards when they got charged. So I thought, oh, I'll just keep them on the side here. And then if Ben tries to charge them, I'll just move them backwards. And so what Ben did was, instead of charge them, he just moved his horsemen right up into their face. So I was like, oh, shit, because I hadn't planned for that. And it was like an unexpected play for me. Because I thought, well, why wouldn't he charge?

But because he didn't charge, it didn't trigger my ability, and it didn't do this thing. And he just outsmarted me, and I felt stupid. Did you ever get that when you're playing a game against people? Never. I'm highly intelligent so I find I never am in that situation me and the lads on Discord have started playing chess

like off stream, we're just messing about playing chess, I know, it's a weird thing, like these little fads emerge on my Discord and we'll be playing a game, it's a classic game there's nothing weird about that at all no, it's just strange that we've suddenly decided after, we've been hanging out together playing games for like five or six years and now you like tips over a certain age i don't know chess is acceptable like we just we

just play it and can you imagine if there was a fortnight discord and they started playing chess on there it's like when films were doing like playing monopoly and stuff like that stuff comes back around you know like it's just interesting you played a long time ago you doing like playing monopoly and stuff like that stuff comes back around you know like it's just interesting you played a long time ago you feel like playing again it's like you've just got it into like an old school drawing room it's like a gentleman's club you go in and with your suit you're like tweed suit cigar sir oh yes please jeeves you get your cigar you walk in you fucking brandy sir yes of course you sit down at the fire you lean over the chessboard you're like oh where were we okay let me take my move for the evening i think stevens yeah it's like it's like that but so we're

just playing it and it's funny because what you're saying about like i think a lot of games chess is chess cuts through all the other stuff and essentially most most kind of games where there's some kind of strategy there are similarities to chess for sure in that you have to think ahead. But most importantly, I find myself not doing this. And I think this might adjust the way you play board games is that if you only look at what you're trying to do and what the immediate threats to you are, you miss out on a huge amount.

So you thought, I'll just leave my lads here because if Ben charges them, they'll just pull back. But you know that Ben knows that. You know that he knows that your them, they'll just pull back. But you know that Ben knows that. Like, you know that he knows that your crossbowman will just pull back. So he would never charge them. So he thought of something else. So in reality, you were thinking about what you were going to do,

but you weren't anticipating what he was going to do. And the whole point of chess, really, is having to think about your overall goals, not really just waiting for your opponent to make a mistake, but trying to build a strategy that's like three or four moves, bim, bim, bim, bim, and suddenly they're in big trouble. So you've got to plan ahead, but you've also got to think what could he be doing?

Like no one moves a piece just to move it. Oh no, but that's where madness lies. This is like that Cthulhu-ian nightmare because then you start getting into like what, so if he knows that I know that he knows that i know that he knows that he starts doing this cycle and then you all go crazy no i'm just saying that a lot of the time when i'm playing games i do this myself i'm thinking about what i'm gonna do and i'm not thinking about what they're trying to do i think another thing you could try as well is uh maybe just being better at the game yeah just get good essentially just being better at the game. Yeah, just get good, essentially.

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ExpressVPN works with any streaming service. Hulu, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, you name it. There are hundreds of VPNs out there but the reason I use ExpressVPN to watch shows is that it's ridiculously fast. There's never any buffering or lag and you can stream in HD no problem. If you visit our special link right now at ExpressVPN.com slash Triforce, you can get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free. Thanks everyone. Enjoy the rest of the show. So occasionally I get recommended chess videos on YouTube. I think I've spoken about this with Magnus Carlsen mostly. And has um a site where people can play chess against him and his his actual chess site thing is that you have to i think you've got three minutes

each for the entire game yeah he's a blitz chess guy right it's fast fast fast yeah and so i don't even watching this thing means i can watch a video in like six minutes you know because it's like it's quite it's quite good like as a youtube content you know a chess game because you'd imagine a chess game to be like fucking hours and hours right just people sat there silently staring at a board in a big arena but no this is like magnus's face kind of with a bad webcam like looking up at his like double chin sort of situation and then he's just like mumbling as he like just crushes this guy at chess and occasionally some guy will do something weird and he'll be like mumbling as he like just crushes this guy at chess and occasionally some guy will do something weird and he'll be like just stuck for like a half a minute or a minute like

sat there like what the fuck do i do to get out of this either realizing he's actually lost right or realizing like maybe there's like some way i can just trick him into thinking i don't know what he's done here um and because there's so many permutations, so many complex situations, even this guy, but most of his decisions are just on autopilot. You'd think a lot of his decision-making is hunch-based. He's like, it feels like this is the right play here. He's almost played so many games that that knowledge is... It's just patterns to him, isn't it?

It's slight variations of a pattern i think most games of chess i know that if you look at the possible permutations of moves it's like the for the obviously the more the game goes on the more it branches and becomes complex because there's obviously only a limited number of moves you can make on turn one and then based on that move you've now got these branches of possible moves you know for your second move and all the rest of it so i think certainly when you think about the way he plays chess early on it's kind of auto party click click click click click and there's lots of set openings that people go for and stuff but then later on i think as the pieces start to get taken and stuff then the patterns start to dissolve and now that's

where the real skill comes out because he suddenly needs to recognize what to do when the tree is gone there's no pattern for this this board is unique you know i've never seen this exact board before in a game and that's when the real skill comes in because a lot of people i know i've played against a ton of people and they know the openings and there's that opening you can do where you win in like three moves or whatever i fall for that one all the time because i just i can't remember fools mate i think and you just go bit bit win and you're like oh yeah it's like super bad um so yeah i've tried the opening where you just mirror your opponent's moves and never works either i don't mind uh i don't mind chess well i don't i mean having said that like i i i

play it very occasionally but like not often i don't know i don't like i don't i don't tend towards like strategy games much like i don't know like i just there's something just sort of like i don't know it's like like unappealing about sort of like lewis was saying you you know, you put something in and you think it's going to work and then it doesn't work. And like, I don't know, I just can't get past that sometimes. You know what I mean? Like the situation with the crossbows, I'd be so salty. I'd just be like, ah, fuck, you know, like that didn't work.

Oh, I'm ruined. And that's how I am. And I've noticed that if the game starts to go my way, my mood lifts so dramatically. And I'm like smiling again. It's fun when you're winning or if you even have a chance of winning. But like I find sometimes strategy games,

depending like who you're playing against or whatever, if you're playing against somebody who's like far superior to you, it's impossible to enjoy the game unless it's like part of a franchise that you really like or or something you know what i mean but like i don't know it just seems so uh unforgiving you know like uh strategy where it's like i don't know i tend more towards like like games that have some strategy to them but oh that but the point of them isn't strategy you know what i think if

like when i play cs go for example what i'm enjoying about it is that even if they're better than me i'm still going to get a few kills yeah just because occasionally a bullet's gonna yeah there's a hit him in the head or whatever or a good grenade or whatever there's there are payoffs whereas like with a strategy game like i don't know if you ever played like like starcraft 2 1v1 or whatever it's exciting to watch and and and and it can be fun to play but man it just feels so bad when like you just get absolutely hammered you know or you can you misread your opponent or you fuck up somehow and it's just like ah shit like i've just wasted all this time i'm yeah fucking dead like it it never feels great does it I don't know yeah, I feel like sometimes

These these these games I've been playing are a little bit like they will screw you badly Like in the same way that XCOM and other games can do when you're playing them, you know often with XCOM It's hunch based you've got like a squad and you try to watch Kind of know like and you kind of want to play with them enough, you kind of know, like, you have to work out stuff. XCOM is different because there's a lot of, there's a lot of, like, random stuff thrown in too. So that, like, sometimes it feels like, oh my fucking God, what a disaster.

But then you'll squeak through somehow, you know, one or two guys who are just almost dead will, you know, you'll just, the luck will shine on you. And that's a well-balanced game, really. It's like mitigating bad luck, having enough to do that. And those moments you just live for in that game, right? Yeah. And then the whole telling a story along the way is so good too, right?

Like, you know, these persistent... That's the art of it, yeah. So it feels like these games that I've been played are quite tightly tuned to the point where, you know, fucking you're being, you're being chased down a corridor while there's like a fucking horror coming out of a portal.

And also like there's a room on fire that's spreading. And then the, you know, like the floors falling out on one side of the room and you've got all this shit going on. You're like, oh, you just have to sort of try and get through it. But yeah, like I enjoy those experiences. You don't, it's not the same with a player. You know, a player will just be teabagging you at that point.

Yeah. You know. Fucking noob. Fucking stupid noob. Yeah. So I don't know. It's, but that's But they're very different experiences. And there's a place for both of them, I think.

But I just find it a lot tougher to get beaten by a guy. I would rather lose to the computer. I hate losing to people. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I hate losing the computer as well. Well, it's not that I hate losing. There's degrees of losing, right?

Sometimes if you get outplayed, but whoever has outplayed you is exceptionally skilled you just think oh whatever you know like i can't be i can't even be mad at that because uh he played so well or whatever you know you have moments like that but it's it's mostly just losing to bullshit right stuff that you just think fuck that i didn't know that that or like it just it's too random that it becomes bullshit or whatever like hearthstone felt like that a lot didn't it it just like yeah because there's i mean any card game is going to have elements where they draw the exact right card and you're just dead and it's like i mean that that feels no fun no of course at all yeah so that's why but if i if that happens to the computer i'm just like oh i'll just go again

no loss whereas against people i think you lucky motherfucker like it just really gets to me i don't know yeah i get it yeah i know what you mean yeah i don't know i think you have to have a like a like a definitely a specific mindset to play like strategy games against other people you know what i mean yeah so you know what it's interesting like i play tons of strategy games i play sports simulation games i play strategy games won't use that's a very pvp kind of yeah but it drives me nuts like what i enjoy about blood bowl is killing another player's team killing his star player or scoring some bullshit goal that's that's basically the only thing i get out of blood bowl yeah he's picking up the ball in some ridiculous situation throwing it like one in six chance this lands and

scoring as a result of that that's it i live for those moments yeah the rest of the game is just kind of a slug fest you can you can usually pick a team that fits with your desired play style you know if you want to be that you know that kind of guy you can probably pick up the pick orcs or whatever i don't know i always play but but only because the orcs have a thrower and occasionally the thrower can pull off an amazing throw and people don't expect the orcs to throw the ball like if you play a big bashy team the key to blood below there are basically two shots you've got the squishy lads like elves and and amazons and stuff and they're like they're the elves in particular their whole game is based around passing because they can dodge past all

your guys they throw the ball he catches the ball and then they score and they just do that every time they get the ball and they're very good at getting around the edge of your lads and they also tend to have units that are good at breaking into boxes and uh and taking the ball away and then just jumping away with it and it feels frustrating because it's like they seem to never fail whereas orcs and dwarves and stuff like that you tend to build them as these punchy teams that kind of slowly grind up the pitch and maybe score a goal in the game but what i like to do is just build a lad who's lightning quick has dodge agi as an orc and then they throw the ball to him and he just runs and scores.

And people are like, oh, dude, they don't expect it. They think you're just going to come and punch him, but we're special orcs. So that's the fun of it to me, really. Other than that, the game stinks. Blood Bowl's terrible. That sounds far too cunning for an orc. Other than that, it stinks, Larry. It does stink. It's terrible.

Blood Bowl's an awful game. It wasn't designed to be balanced. It wasn't, no. Like all fucking Games Workshop games. It's terrible. It was an awful game. It wasn't designed to be balanced. Like all fucking Games Workshop games. It's designed to sell miniatures. Games Workshop games are terrible. Seas of Blood is a prime example. It's a game called Seas of Blood. Great models, great lore, terrible games.

Did you ever play Seas of Blood? It was like a naval combat game set in the Warhammer fantasy universe. I never did. And you had corsairs and you had uh you know they were like the human ships you had elf ships you had dwarf ships and stuff the dwarves had dreadnoughts like or iron clads oh man of war is cool man of war and they had iron clads and you couldn't penetrate their armor at range but they were bristling with guns so the only thing against them as usual with dwarves because it's games workshop and they love dwarves, is that they're a little slow. But that doesn't really matter because the board isn't that big.

The objective is to fight, not to get to somewhere quickly. So you basically circle around them, failing to penetrate their armor. Meanwhile, they're blasted away at your little ship. And if you dare to go close, you die. And they did it because the miniatures just came out. And it was like, we just announced this Dwarf expansion and they're amazing. So why would you ever play the game unless you were playing Dwarfs? Games Workshop's stock price is like fucking high as hell.

It's crazy. Like I looked at them like a while back for some reason. And I don't know why. I guess they're just really, really successful. I don't know. Like it's just nuts. I mean, they've shut all these stores. So I guess they're just really, really successful. I don't know. Like, it's just nuts. I mean, they've shut all these stores,

so I guess they just moved to online sales and stuff. Yeah. Which probably makes, well, especially so much of their revenue comes from licensing there. Yeah. IP. That's it.

License it out to, to video games. And income from things like Total War. I mean, yeah, exactly. You know, all the other bits and bobs that they do.

Cause isn't that Vermintide game that came out? That was quite popular. and that was them as well well the thing is like when you're building a game imagine you want to make a game you build sort of the universe and all this crap and you have a game and it's called like I don't know fucking any old shit you know eternal magic

realms of fire it sounds like a mobile game and you've made your universe. No one gives a shit. Throne of Thrones, Fire, and Ice. But suddenly, if it's called, I don't know, Warhammer, Bright Wizard Wars, I don't know. Suddenly, you've got, it still sounds like a mobile game.

Clash of Warhammers. But it suddenly sounds like, it's suddenly a universe that you can just, a pre-made universe, that people will just buy that just because it's something they've heard of, right? Well, yeah i mean i mean like the dawn of war games like the uh the 40k rts games that's dawn of war isn't it a lot of times games will just be made and then skinned with uh a universe you know you you could even make a blank slate game you know and and shop around once it's made and find a universe to skin it in you know whether it's going to be game of thrones or because wasn't the dawn of war stuff was basically just

company of heroes but it was dawn of war yeah and and the same thing with total war you know total war up new engine you know unit skins and they've been making it for you know 10 years now total war warhammer but um wait no that just only came out recently didn't it total war warhammer warhammer 2 just came out oh right okay sorry so that well i say recently like two years ago probably now it's interesting like old ips that uh three years ago that sort of stand the test of time they stay around forever i mean like warhammer has just been around for as long as i can remember uh i never like i've never been into it or whatever. But I like the 40k stuff. And I mean, even like Fallout, like the the IP has been around and it's changed hands.

It's interesting, isn't it? Like how some of this stuff just keeps going. Like you think like with Warhammer, what the fuck could they possibly add to it now? After all this time, like that would, you know, keep it interesting or whatever but they still they still do like i guess it's still popular like well it's it's exceedingly popular isn't it like people still paint miniatures and play board games and people watch people paint miniatures yeah yeah that's how much people like miniature painting yeah yeah there's all those youtube videos i've talked about them before where people just paint a thousand goblins identically so people will watch it it was something like okay so something like warhammer being somebody who's not i don't i know very little about it i know bits and pieces but like

is there like story like is there lore are there big characters or is there lore is it just factions and and miniatures There's a million hours of lore. Right, okay. There's been like thousands of novels. Oh, right, okay. I mean, the lore used to be quite simple. That's really all it is. It used to be, you'd get the rulebook, like I've got the old 40K rulebook,

and there's lore pages in there, which is just like some ancient text reproduced that talks about the emperor and where he came from and all the rest of it, and then one about the forces of chaos. And then if you buy the Eldar expansion book or whatever, there's all stuff about the Eldar in there. Yeah. And the lore, when I was fucking 14, 15, I was, oh, this is amazing. Like, this is the greatest story ever told. Wow.

It was amazing. And then now I'm older, I'm just like. I was more of a hero's quest kind of guy when I was younger. That's Warhammer. Hero's quest? Hero quest. What, the board game? Yeah, I'm just like... I was more of a Heroes Quest kind of guy when I was younger. That's Warhammer. Heroes Quest? Hero Quest. What, the board game? Yeah, I'm sure it is.

Oh, I didn't realize it was. I just thought it was... Oh, it's Milton Bradley. I thought it was... Yeah, I was like... I thought it was... I thought it involved Games Workshop in some way. Wait, no, it was like Games Workshop Lite, I think. It was like...

Yeah. It was like, here's a really watered-down dumb version for all of you plants. They did a version that was basically HeroQuest. What was it called? Well, Games Workshop actually did make the miniatures, I think, and build the world for them. I think they actually were involved.

I'm sure they were involved. But anyway, the point is that, yeah, it's huge amounts of really cool story that people know. People are familiar with Space Marines and Tyranids and all their factions. They're familiar with elves and dwarves and goblins and the Warhammer world. I'm familiar with the imagery, but I didn't realize that there was fucking books and everything to back it up to. I just figured it was just like people who were into it just collected the...

Because every time you see the models, it's always like tons of models right you get like those big ones where it's like a whole like garrison of troops or whatever there's like it's like a like on a plate and there's like 20 dudes or whatever and i just figured it was just like i mean let me tell you right nowadays you you can pretty much do anything you if you're even even 20 years ago it was like this like imagine you're really big into i don't know feudal japan and the era of the shoguns there's like some really cool plastic models for samurai troops for shield guys for pike guys for leaders leader units you can buy them you can paint them you can kick start them you can see people who've painted them already and what do they have books for all of these like the shogun ones too like

is there like uh i mean but but the point is that that already exists because that's real history you can read a million books about the fucking feudal japan and feudal japan no i'm talking but this is warhammer though right like no no Yeah, but Warhammer has become like a term which is almost like the same for Hoover. Hoover is a manufacturer of vacuum cleaners. I thought it was like dwarves or like orcs wearing like shogun armor and stuff. No, because there's a million different

miniatures systems out there. There's loads. And companies will produce a line of miniatures to go with their game system that they've come up with. And some of them have varying success and all the rest of it. And I think a lot of people, when they get older, I certainly did, I was super into Warhammer stuff when I was younger. And then when I started to get more interested in history

and actual warfare and actual miniatures and stuff that were representative of, say, the powers in the in world war ii and stuff like that you know i was like i was playing more those kind of games and ancient battles and napoleonics i love napoleonic stuff because it's just yes or do you like batman there's a batman miniatures games a harry potter i didn't like any of the stuff that was like that it had to be historical you can any of these all these things exist and and they some of them are pretty bad games in themselves some of them are and i'm such a simpleton i've realized like all i played was like the only board games i ever played when i was younger was like hero quest and uh axis and

here you go right no one actually plays these fucking board games sips most of people just know the know the mint know the law they buy these expensive tiny toys that are unpainted they paint themselves and then they hope that they can get one of their friends to play with them okay but but as always it's like the game is like 50 buying miniatures and you know 30 painting them yourself 10 looking at them and then 5% actually using them to play a game with someone. Because then you have to get the rule book out, you have to figure out what the rules are. Like me and Alex actually played the Fallout miniatures game about three weeks ago. Was it five?

It was probably ages ago. It feels like three weeks ago, but it was 10 weeks ago. Just before the lockdown, me and Alex played the Fallout miniatures game. And it took us about three hours to learn the fucking thing. Basically, you start off with the guy that came out of the vault, Soul Survivor. You can pick a couple of different ones. A dog meat. Did you paint that? And you have to fight super mutants and ghouls.

Yeah, Alex painted some. I just inked some ghouls so they were brown and glowing. It's like a piece of piss. But you're in a unique position because you go to work and everyone there at your work plays games and will play board games.

I don't know anybody in my area that plays board games. But you're not unusual. You are the normal person. No, exactly. That's most people. Very few people actually ever get to play these fucking games. You need to join a club like that's why board game cafes are a big thing now but i feel like there's one in richmond near me and you can

go there and play board games you can drink they'll do food you can buy their board games there's one there's one close uh to me there's like a club of people that get together but i always just figured that like these guys probably know each other or or have like a long-standing sort of like relationship which with each other or or have like a long-standing sort of like relationship which with each other where they they play certain things that they like or whatever i always feel like if i oh yeah like i like the sound of that fallout uh miniatures game where i always feel like if i went to one of these places like hey guys what's up one place fallout miniatures and uh no we're we're too busy playing uh fucking uhest and we've got an Axis and Allies

game on the go here too. We don't want to learn your game. That's what I feel like it would be like. I'm sure it is like that. I think it would be like that. Yeah. I think it's up to, as always, with anything in life, I've found that

it's up to me to galvanize people to do the things that i would like to do with that right you've got to motivate people a little bit and it's tough right because people people are usually down for anything and especially if they don't have to prepare it's like the classic thing of dungeons and dragons it's easy to find people to play dungeons and dragons with but it's hard to find someone who wants to run the fucking dungeons and dragons so you always end up having to do it so if you actually want to play dungeon dragons you either have to be lucky that someone else is

running one near you or just reply quickly when someone invites you to do it and then you know that's how it is you know um it's a funny funny funny thing but i don't think you are missing out um really but nowadays certainly with tabletop sim there are there are i'm sure a wealth of resources online for you to go into discords and find people and i bet you there's probably a number probably i love the idea of tabletop sim but i hate it's just it feels even fiddlier that yeah they're actually playing with the real it does yeah you've got to like the physics of picking the dice up and stuff and it just feels like so tedious like and in fact that is one of the main reasons i think that it's that i i don't like tabletop sim like yeah because one of the

main reasons people play minis games and i'm sure a lot of people listening right now would agree that playing them physically is such a big part of the game. Yeah, you want to look at your little lads. Yeah, of course. But you also want to stare into the eyes of the enemy you're about to vanquish. And, you know, they know at that moment they're about to eat your shit and stuff. But I will say that the tabletop sim is a great way to learn a game, if you haven't learned it, or set it up. So often they're like like some of these games have this specific setup if you can load it up in table top sim do it go through it yourself like

you could even like do a practice game on your own if you don't can't find someone to teach you um that is a really valuable resource certainly for me it's like sped up my way of learning board games um lately you know what do you know what there is actually uh another family that we know in the area and we played settlers of katan with them and we played sure we played tickets a ride with them because we played with those are really fun i like those right they're fun yeah they're chill so we're playing and what there's another fun family which is the one where you have to you have to build tram lines through san francisco i'm sure it's called something like san francisco trams or whatever it's like old san francisco and you build tram

lines out it's cool it was a fun little game ticket to ride is really fun i like that it's a good game yeah so we were playing settlers of katan and the other mum uh she she got she got completely boxed in like very early on the roads just that's it she was stuck so her game she was like quite upset and kind of sulky which i don't blame her because i've been in that situation again we were like great i can't actually do anything so she was like i guess it's my go and i was like oh dear she's not enjoyed herself anymore because katana's kind of like that and i played it a bit and the other dad had played it a bit and the eldest daughter had played it a bit and my eldest didn't want to play because she's i don't

know she's just weird at the moment but so we're all playing and everyone else is doing okay but she was just like screwed there was no way that she could do anything i felt really bad that's the one thing about about some board games is that you just sometimes go a little unlucky and that's it you don't know exactly what you're doing somebody ultimately has to be the biggest loser right like yeah there's no way around well here's the deal what's happened there is people have either made mistakes or figured the game out and there's actually a couple of expansions to katan like there's a one where it's like an island expansion yeah um and so it means you actually have to go and discover islands so you actually almost have

to build cities on the coast build boats and go out and discover these islands and so it stops that sounds cool blocking yeah um it stops that blocking sort of game which is a part of the game unfortunately but like we play um uh the kids play this as well actually uh carcassonne which is another classic uh oh that's the carcassonne is the uh like the puzzle piece one right where you have yeah you place tiles and you have to try and build cities and roads and fields and people from from completing theirs and so my youngest every time she plays she wants to help out with your city so you build a city and she'll like join in i'm like no no don't put it there you you want to go here because you've got to get your guy in there and then we'll work together she's like all right okay and my wife always tries to build these cities on her own and i'll always always always always try

to screw over mrs f's city by like she's almost finished it and i'll just put that one tile because i know there's no piece that will fit this apart from this one piece and we haven't seen it yet so she has to put this piece down if she wants to finish this yeah that's the kind of thing is a horrible it's great you can really screw people over by by looking at the tiles that are out and thinking what's what's left to come like there's one tile that's just city the entire thing is city and i always think it's funny when you know someone's waiting on that tile it's the there's only one of it in the entire set and you just just yoink it for your own city stick it on the edge of something just for nothing just one point but it's it's like it would have made them

a million points oh I love it yeah Carcassonne is a lot of those games like Carcassonne Settlers Ticket to Ride they have really really good

mobile versions of all those games you play on tablet and stuff yes they do and some of them are free some of them you can play against

other people online and stuff too which is kind of fun there's like leaderboards and shit like that. You can do it, but it's sometimes not as fun. It's not as good as the real thing, but if you can't get people together to do the real thing

or you're in quarantine and it's harder to do or whatever, they're really good alternatives. No, for real. I've definitely been binging some of these board games on my iPad. I wouldn't say all of them are great on the iPad, but certainly Ticket to Ride is very good on the iPad. Some of them aren't too expensive either. Did you ever play Talisman, the board game, Talisman?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not a big fan. I'm not a big fan. There's all these extra expansions. I'm wondering if my kids are on, because I got the original edition Talisman I bought on eBay years ago, and I've never played it with anybody digital there's a digital steam version that was quite i want the little lads and the old school

games workshop artwork none of the new shit i'm talking the og artwork when they made good games i mean there are for all these games for carcass of sets of tan for anything that's that's ancient like talisman as well there are a million um versions and mods and changes and rule sets and expansions and official expansions and everything and and i think if you look around you probably will be able to find the best version of talisman that is playable and i think by now there'll be fans who are you know really addicted to that have have really make your own flex get the lads together stop playing chess why don't you guys all pool in and make a fan version of the game that you want to play? You know?

Be the change you want to see. Can't be bothered. I recommend you get the lads on table top. We've done that. We've played Secret Hitler. We've played a couple of other things. But they all want to play Pokemon Hunter or whatever it's called. I think it's a board game.

Yeah, they love it. See, this is like those guys at the game store sips goes in he's like hey guys well this is another thing this is another thing we're older guys right and a lot of these people that are like in our you know chat communities or whatever are much younger right yeah people liking pokemon is usually for me a giveaway like that they're that that's the notice that's the noticeable age gap like i have they grew up with nothing minus minus 100 in the same way that you you would love a miniatures game about like the fucking grunge bands of the 90s

sips would love that or hip-hop you know or the sopranos i don't know they they like things about i don't know fucking pokemons little nas x jojo's bizarre adventure and i don't know weird and that's but that's what i go back to is like that they know that universe and that universe doesn't have to do anything you know you can watch like a crappy star wars movie but because you know the universe of it so well and you've watched everything before and you've got that background of knowledge, it doesn't have to be amazing to be a good experience.

Here's one thing I will say, though. I grew up with Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe, Thundercats. None of those are going to make a good board game. I grew up with it, but I don't give a shit about it now. Tell me one thing about the lore of those are going to make a good board game I grew up with it but I don't give a shit about it now so tell me one thing about the lore of those things though like it feels like you know is that He-Man was invented to to make to sell toys there's no of course but so was Pokemon the lore the TV show everything that was not was not meant to be anything more than let me make my point my point is that those things didn't have anything really to them.

So the enduring appeal of Pokemon must be because it has more to it. Like, it's not just that they grew up with it. It must actually be good. I just don't care. If they recognize the hundreds of Pokemon, you know, that's what it is. It's not just that. Honestly, I think you're underestimating how good it must be. I'm saying i'm just saying it's not for me i've looked at it i don't care but i can see it's better than the show i agree with flex there's definitely there's

something about it that keeps people yeah playing it beyond being a kid because like like you said like i i'd have no interest in doing in in anything related to-Man, even though I played with He-Man a lot. Yeah, it's shit. Ninja Turtles. I mean, I've got some nostalgia about it. I remember the toys. I remember, you know, I have a fondness for it. Yeah.

But I don't want to fucking play He-Man. He's going to suck. Oh, my God. So one thing I did today, yesterday, was I visited Simon's Animal Crossing island. Right. Animal Crossing is obviously the same way that, you know, it's been out, there's a version of Animal Crossing

being out for 15, 20 years. This one is, this is a real experience though. But this is a real big one. And part of it is the fact that there are 300 or 400 villagers and people know who they are and have experienced them before and like the style of gameplay

and it's very chill, it's very fun. Simon has been, man man he's created this really kind of cool island with some cool stuff on it looks really fun it's very simon he's been streaming him doing it in the mornings and me we recorded a video of um just me having like a half an hour tour of his island and i don't know like it's just it made me laugh a lot and he he clearly been having a it clearly felt like he in the same way that you'd be making a meat factory. Simon had made like a kind of, he'd made like a, originally he had like a creepy basement with like creepy dolls and candles and stuff. And he was making like a pentagram down there.

But he eventually turned it into like a kind of nightclub. down there but he eventually turned it into like a kind of nightclub okay um uh and then the that his he's got like a really cool study and he's got like a kind of panic room behind a um behind a bookshelf that you have to push the bookshelf you go behind the panic room the panic room's got like a golden throne in there and he's got like a special costume with a king turdington golden suit on it's just man it made me laugh my ass off a couple of times and um it felt like i don't know wholesome but also like something that he'd obviously really i don't know just gotten invested in felt like he was enjoying it and also something that he clearly wanted to go back to out of the stream you know in the same way that you're enjoying

so coming back to your fallout thing i don't think it's a problem, Sips. It sounds like a problem, and you might worry that it's a problem, but because you're worried that it's a problem, it's probably not a problem. I don't want my kids to see it. I don't agree with that, because, you know, I mean, Son of Sam wrote on the wall,

stop me before I kill again. He knew what Son of Sam was doing was not cool. It doesn't make it okay. I think what you're doing, Sips, is fucking hilarious, and i love it and every time i watch your stream it makes me want to reinstall fallout 4 um and do the same so i'm yeah i'm fully supporting the i saw actually um on reddit there was a someone made like a fucking uh took some clip out of like an 80s movie for the bone.

I haven't seen that. Did you see that? There was a clip on r slash sips. Yeah, it's like out of an 80s movie where there's all these tourists and they go in a bone machine and it spits out the bones at the other side. I'm going to look this up right now. Go have a look after the podcast. Anyway, we've got to finish up.

All right. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Thanks for watching. Bodega book is out. Audio book. Audio book. On Audible. Number three on the charts as well.

It was on the charts. It was on the sci-fi charts. Behind classics such as Lord of the Rings and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yeah, for a while it was number four there. Wow. It was crazy. So, yeah, if you want to get a copy of that, you have to sign up to Audible or something. And for a a while it was number four that was crazy. So yeah, if you want to get a copy of that you have to sign up

to audible or something. And for a little while it was number 69 on the overall list. Maybe we don't have any referral codes or anything because it's because it's 2020. And there's no I don't know any kind of referral code or any kind of thing like that. And we're not sponsored by audible and whatever. But that's where you can get it if you're interested. Thank you very much for everybody that's already got it and the poster and everything i really appreciate it you guys are all thank you thank you you guys rock thank you for supporting bflex because he needs it he does uh poor boy he has to feed his

he's got magnus carlson tutoring him and he's not he is expensive expensive and gets very angry with me Magnus no well thanks for listening and stay frosty and we'll see you guys next week next week bye bye

see you next week stay alert love you all stay safe stay alert stay alert bye