December 23, 2024 • 32 mins
Dave, Jon, and Ben are joined by super special guest expert and board game aficionado, Jeff to talk all about board games and card games! In part 1 of this 2-part episode, they share a food related to the theme and dive right into their favorite games from when they were kids. You'll feel the nostalgia and maybe learn about some new games you'll want to try! Then, they start discussing games from young adulthood to now. Don't miss more fun in Part 2!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Whatever really happened to dudes calling each other best friends?
(00:05):
Dave and John grew up in the 80s in New Jersey and they did everything together.
They were the quintessential best friends until they became teenagers and Dave moved
away.
Fast forward to today and these two 40-somethings reconnected and decided to not only be besties
again but to put on a podcast and share their reunion with anyone who will listen.
(00:25):
Welcome to Fat, Dumb and Happy.
Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to a very fun episode of Fat, Dumb and Happy.
Grab your Monopoly money, dust off those Uno cards and pop that Pop-O-Matic bubble because
tonight we are talking all about board games and card games.
Tonight's episode is for 4 players ages 44 and up but y'all can tag along as we discuss
(00:46):
games from the 80s to today.
Stick around because it's going to be a great time.
My name is Dave, I'll be your host for this episode and left of the dealer is my bro host
John.
What's up John?
What's going on everybody?
Dave, this better be a great episode otherwise I'm gonna flip this table.
You know it's gonna be good.
So John, I got a question for you.
Go ahead man.
(01:07):
What color game piece do you pick?
It's weird because I was thinking about this earlier.
I just don't remember there being many different colors more just like pieces and stuff like
that but usually the blue.
You know Monopoly I was gonna try to be the car.
Gotta be the car?
Gotta be the car, yeah.
How critical was that like when you were playing with your sister or playing with other friends
(01:29):
or whatever like was that a pretty big deal to get the one that you wanted?
I played better.
I swear in my head I played better.
Yeah man.
I was a better real estate guy.
That's right.
All right with us also pulling out the game instructions and arguing about the rules is
our in-house special guest expert Ben.
Are we playing house rules tonight Ben?
(01:50):
Oh yeah and I got a wild draw for you.
Nice.
Dang it.
That's awesome.
All right so tonight we have a super special guest expert my buddy and board game master
Jeff.
How you doing tonight Jeff?
I'm good Dave.
Glad to be here.
Yes awesome.
(02:11):
So Jeff and I go back to 2013 I believe when we were both on active duty in the Air Force
and we were stationed at the same duty location and right away I could tell Jeff was
a fun hang.
I knew we would be buddies and I also right away found out that he is a board game lover.
That job was so fun because of Jeff.
(02:34):
I think I talked about it in our jobs episode but during our lunch breaks we would bust
out board games card games and just play every single lunch pretty much and on our little
tdy's and everything else it was a good time.
So Jeff tell us why you are a board game expert.
Tell us a little bit about your love of board games.
Similar to you guys I probably grew up playing board games with the family and then sometime
(02:56):
when I joined the military I got into a couple of games that are pretty common now whether
it's a katan and ticket to ride and then finding out a site called boardgamegeek.com and through
their recommendations my wife calls me a board game snob nowadays but we have about 170 games.
(03:16):
My kids for years were pretty receptive.
They understood every birthday and every Christmas that they were each going to get a board game
and so we were able to expand about eight games a year because we have my wife and the
four kids.
That's been a big thing.
That's what we do.
We like to watch a lot of movies and we like to play a lot of board games and so during
covid it was a good example.
(03:38):
We did the month of may after covid started we played a different board game every day
and then we kept a scoreboard and so we figured out who was the board game king for queen
for the house and I barely beat out Charlie, Dave if you remember him but a couple of points
but it was a close one.
Nice.
No yeah Jeff is a he's very strategic.
(03:59):
He's very good at his games and I have seen that wall of board games in real life so and
I'm sure it's bigger than the last time I saw it and it's pretty awesome man.
Hopefully the new house has like a dedicated room just for board games.
I don't know.
So how's that?
We pretty much cover the basement one of the basement walls so it's pretty nice.
Forget the specialty mug room.
He's got a true game room.
(04:20):
Yes.
That's geez.
That's awesome man.
All right.
So speaking of the number of games is a quick disclaimer.
You know there are an insane amount of board games out there and we don't claim to be a
fish in autos maybe Jeff but the rest of us not so much.
So if we miss any of your faves give us a five star review and let us know.
(04:40):
We'll definitely bring it up next time.
So all right let's turn it over to the food portion.
John talk us through it.
So everybody knows we all eat a food and that food is related to the topic of the conversation
of a podcast tonight which tonight will be board games.
This one was probably a little bit easier than some of our other ones have been lately.
Dave let's start with you.
(05:01):
What do you got going on?
All right.
So I have this right here.
I don't know if you can see it.
It's basically a grocery bag.
Yeah it's a grocery bag and it is full of miscellaneous candy.
So for a while there on Sunday evenings we would play games as a family.
But here's the thing.
I got three kids and they're each six years apart.
So finding a game that all three can you know get excited about is pretty hard.
(05:26):
So we would bribe them with their leftover Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's whatever
candy that we always have like this big old bag of.
Do you guys have that Ben?
Jeff do you have like an area where your like leftover candy goes?
No we eat it Dave.
What's leftover candy?
Wait this is Pat Dumb and Happy.
What am I thinking?
Yeah that's right.
I mean if it's leftover it's never going to get eaten.
(05:48):
It's like banana laffy taffy.
Yeah exactly.
Great example.
Ben do you guys have one?
Yeah exactly.
I know about that.
You know some of my kids hang on to them faster than others you know.
And so like Jacob he has a stash of like 50 packs of Smarties that he saves for like.
(06:12):
That's my boy.
He's not willing to give up but he doesn't you know he doesn't actually eat very often.
Yeah just every now and then you got that craving so that's awesome.
All right I'm gonna reach in and just grab a random thing and let's see.
I got Skittles but unfortunately it's got the Halloween markings on it so it's been
(06:33):
a couple of months but that's all right.
Should be okay still.
So all right.
It's good to have a black licorice.
No don't you say it.
Don't you dare.
All right Ben over to you.
What do you got?
So when I think of games I think of pretzels for some reason.
I don't know why.
It's just one of those things like like popcorners for movies you know.
And pretzels I think of as the kind of cliche get together with some friends and play some
(06:58):
games together.
Yeah.
It's got a mix of pretzel stuff and it's got a little tiny hint of mustard which I normally
don't like but with pretzels is like my one acceptable like yeah take it.
It's good.
Heck yeah.
Nice.
All right.
All right.
Jeff what do you got?
Well I was just playing today before we started so there's two things a couple years ago I
(07:20):
spent a year downrange in Saudi Arabia and so I look forward to my wife sending out it
was Snyder's Twisted Pretzels the season version.
I don't know they take way too many seasonings and put them on the pretzels but they were
amazing.
So between that and what I call a single serve bag of peanut butter M&Ms which is not like
a small bag but it's a family size.
(07:42):
I got it.
Explain to Dave that I had both of those about a week ago but they didn't make it to tonight.
So I'm just gonna have regular pretzels this evening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Awesome.
The guys they put on the things now that's a that's a lameness man.
Yeah.
Dude the Snyder's pretzel is like the everything bagel of pretzels man it's got so much seasoning
(08:06):
on that thing.
Yeah.
My sister's got like four different flavored pretzels from them right now in the pantry.
So good.
What about you John what do you got?
Yeah so I had two different ways I could go.
One I was gonna do you know some Domino's pizza.
Yeah.
Some place in Domino's man.
Throw some bones.
There you go.
I'm gonna go with an apple trying to be good.
(08:28):
There you go.
For an apple with you know apples versus apples.
Always a good game to play.
So yeah.
Going with the apple.
Nice.
Apples to apples good one.
I like it.
All right Ben break it down for us.
What's going on?
All right well we're talking everything board games and card games and all that but we want
to start off with just maybe board games as a kid you know what are the things that stood
(08:53):
out to you?
One of the like the first ones you were introduced to or the ones that stood out in your childhood
that you know really bring back the memories.
How about you John why don't you go first?
Yeah so for me I just really like playing sorry as a kid.
I don't know why it was like the simplest of games and making somebody go all the way
back to the start was always fun but that was one.
(09:16):
I always think though as a family and this is where I got my love for word games we always
played bobble.
Yeah.
And my brothers and sisters hated me because I even at a young age I was really good at
like seeing words within words and making the most of it and I think I held my own as
a kid.
(09:37):
I think I did pretty good and so like now one of the games I play on my iPad I play
at least you know three four five times a week just a word scramble type game but I
always love those type of games.
So yeah that was any word game that's kind of where it stems from for me.
Right back at you Ben what about for you?
Well first of all if I want to say yeah and bobble is definitely a good one man and it's
(09:59):
funny because as a kid you know most of my siblings were a lot older than me and I always
felt like like I was doing pretty well like oh man I got this big long list and then they
would have me cross out everything like everything.
Yeah.
So I would be happy you know if I had two or three you know that like they didn't get
(10:20):
like oh yeah I was a smart guy because I got one or two you know even though I was like
losing I felt actually good about myself that I actually caught a few that they didn't get
you know.
That's a great feeling.
Oh yeah great feeling.
Or if they try to call you on it being spelled wrong you're like no no I'm right.
Yeah.
(10:40):
So awesome.
I think if I got it wrong they were merciful to me and just like let it go because I didn't
have much.
Dude or if you found like a six or seven letter or something crazy you're like yeah that's
a winning the lottery.
Yeah.
Yes.
As far as for me I don't know one of my favorite games was Clue and it was hard to play because
(11:04):
a lot of times it was like you had to get enough people to play for it to be fun you
know and a lot of times my older siblings didn't really want to you know.
And so it didn't happen too often but that was one of my favorites.
There's a couple that bring back memories from my grandpa whenever we would go to his
house there's one that's called booby trap and basically it's got pressure pushed on
(11:29):
a bunch of circular discs that you could pull out one by one and as you pull it out the
bar that's pushing against it slides forward and stuff and you know if you pull the wrong
one it just basically smashes them all.
And so that was kind of a nerve wracking one.
It kind of reminded me of like Operation or something like that where you're like oh if
I pull the wrong thing this could totally blow up on me you know.
(11:53):
And then another one again this was not one I was very good at but I remember my grandpa
loved it.
It was called Caram and it's where you lose these like circular discs that you kind of
you know flick and try to knock them into these corner pockets sort of like pool I guess
you could say.
You have to knock your slider thing into them and that was a pretty fun one too.
Okay so just real quick on that Dave you remember me taking you to the park program?
(12:17):
Yes dude.
I played Caram all the time.
Yeah when Ben mentioned Caram I saw that earlier I started thinking about when we were growing
up we had this park program basically where your parents can go dump you for the day and
you know you do crafts or whatever and you know play around kickball whatever it is but
all the different parks have their own little setup.
(12:38):
And between Caram and also I think I might have mentioned it later down there Knock Hockey
remember Knock Hockey?
Oh yeah Knock Hockey dude yes.
They always had like championships like between the parks.
I was that's champion once.
Nice.
You're good dude.
What is Knock Hockey?
And that sounds interesting.
Dave's gonna have to bring it up.
It's just like a miniature little hockey thing.
(13:00):
Like literally these little hockey sticks are all a piece of wood.
The corners have like these little edges to them so you can kind of sweep it around and
they have a block right in front if I remember correctly.
Let's see.
Dave's pulling it up here.
Oh yeah.
So it's not like tabletop size it's a little bit bigger.
It wasn't like in that picture it made it look really small but it was a decent size.
It sounds fun.
Yeah.
(13:21):
All right well what about you Dave?
So I was thinking about it and it's funny but I feel like when it came to board games
my memories are pretty much all tied to John.
Like I think I had too much energy to play board games at home and I think being the
youngest of the seven I never had a chance especially with our sisters they're like so
good at board games.
(13:42):
So anyways I remember playing Guess Who with John.
Actually remember playing the game of life that was classic.
Battleship and Simon.
Remember Simon the electronic leg beep beep beep beep.
You had to like repeat it or whatever.
Yeah and they came out like with full grip.
I feel like there were so many knockoffs of that game and I don't think we had the original
(14:05):
one but we had at least a couple of those interesting knockoff ones where you have to
like twist it or bop it or swing it or whatever you know.
Yeah from the Simon.
Yeah yeah exactly.
Yeah and then there's like a thousand different versions of Monopoly now.
Yeah yeah.
So yeah good time.
What about you Jeff what were some of your childhood favorites?
(14:27):
You guys mentioned a couple of them.
Growing up I had one older brother that was one year older than me and then a brother
that was 10 years younger.
We played a lot of two player games like Stratego or chess or checkers when I was growing up.
As I got a little bit older I think the main board game we played as a family was Trival
Pursuit which was very frustrating for me because my brother and my dad's memory was
(14:47):
just ridiculous.
And so we played that a lot we probably had four or six different versions.
Of course when I started dating Sarah that Dave knows there was enough times that someone
in my family would be like well this is an easy one and then my wife wouldn't know it.
And so when we got married all Trival Pursuit games were given away.
So we have not one Trival Pursuit game left in the house.
(15:09):
But yeah so Trival Pursuit but really what we spent a lot of time in is what we're going
to talk about next is card games as a kid.
So that was probably the biggest thing for us was playing cards with my parents.
And so why don't we go ahead and kick that off.
Ben what kind of card games do you like as a kid.
So one of my favorite games and I don't know if this is really what it's called but we
(15:29):
called it Spit.
And basically you had these stack of cards that can go up or down in numbers and you
could as fast as you want just start laying them out and pounding them down up and down
and up and down so it'd be like five four three four five three four you know.
And you just put them out as fast as you can.
(15:52):
That was a really fun one.
Another one we played was I mean we just played so much Uno.
We had just various versions of Uno.
We had one we called Match where you know you could play out of turn.
That was you know I think they now have that as part of like a house rules thing that's
like built into the game.
Right.
And we had that from way early on before we ever heard of that I think.
(16:13):
I don't know who started it.
Inspired by the two managers.
Right.
I remember playing that at your house at your table in that room in the little dining room
right there.
That's where I met Mitch.
We played it a lot.
We played it a lot.
Another one we didn't play so much but I did kind of find it fun was called Milborne and
it was a car racing game where you could give each other flat tires and add a gas and stuff
(16:39):
like that and it was kind of fun.
You could also have these protection cards where like it was like you know impervious
unbreakable tire and so someone tries to give you flat tire you suddenly pull out your unbreakable
tire and it kind of gets extra points or something like that.
I can't remember exactly but that was a pretty fun one too I thought as a kid.
(17:02):
That sounds familiar.
I'm gonna have to pull up that just to see what it looks like.
I've never heard of this Milborne.
It's like a French game I think and so my dad went to France for his mission and then
we had cousins that lived like in France for a while as well and so when they would come
to visit once in a while they would bring out this Milborne game and I always thought
(17:23):
it was super fun.
Yeah the box looks familiar.
I think you know when I came around I think all our card games and board games everything
was missing like pieces and stuff and I just got the cards.
You made it hard to do it.
They put a stop sign on you and then there's like no more green.
Yeah.
I'm like all these games are broken.
(17:45):
What was the game that you guys always had sitting around with the little stones and
the beads and you go from one to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My call I think is another name for it but we called it worry.
Yeah or we called it worry.
I think that's another name for it too so yeah we got to move the beads to the other
end you try to get all yours to the other side or whatever and landing it just right
(18:08):
in one clears the other side and gets you an extra extra turns and things like that
was it's a fun game for sure.
All right for me you know like Ben said we played all kinds of Uno family games.
There's what we called oh heck where you had a trump card and you had a you had a bid beforehand
how many tricks you're going to win.
Yeah it was fun and then war I remember playing war with John good times and I also remember
(18:32):
playing 52 pickup.
That was a good time.
Yep yep and a younger sibling out there has played that game many a time.
Yes I remember you having Liz play that game for sure.
That was fun.
Once or twice.
Yeah.
What about you Jeff what do you got.
I rocked the first card game we learned playing as a kid was pinnacle so double duck pinnacle
for players.
(18:53):
So it's a big moment when me and my older brother could stop being paired with one of
our parents and then me and him would take on my mom and dad.
So it took us several years to get to that point but pinnacle for a long time and then
the other backups to that especially growing up in the Midwest was Euker and spades and
so in high school spades.
But yeah a family vacation when I was a little kid pinnacle double duck pinnacle for sure.
(19:17):
The pinnacle I've never played it and it just for me it sounds so old.
It seems like an old game.
It's awesome though man.
I've been ready to go to the senior center for a long time Dave.
Yeah such a great kid.
It's awesome.
If I could live in a senior housing like apartment complex right now I would.
Yeah.
Give me together with a bunch of old people play.
(19:38):
I have never learned bridge.
So my parents had a bridge group every month but that's the one game so heart spades Euker
pinnacle no problem for whatever region even canasta.
I actually learned that later in life but yeah give me any card game I'm in.
What's the one with the with the pegs that we would play at FIT.
Oh cribbage.
(19:59):
Yeah.
It's a good time to you can play that with two three or four people.
Yeah.
Quidditch is awesome.
Oh cribbage.
Yeah.
I can't wait for that senior center man when they bring us food and change our diapers.
Just yeah just stay in bed all day.
That's gonna be awesome.
You're gonna be like Jeff's gonna be like the king of that place man.
(20:20):
Yeah he is.
Just like getting everyone's medicine by winning card games and stuff against them.
How about this good sleeping pills.
I'll raise you.
I'll see those sleeping pills and raises a diuretic.
So I don't know whatever.
John what about you.
Yeah.
So like men say that we're growing up it was always a fun one and then spoons.
(20:44):
You guys ever play spoons.
Oh yeah I love spoons.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So for those who don't know spoons basically however many people are playing you take that
many sets out of the deck.
So if you have us for playing well you probably it's better with more people but you got to
know let's say there are seven or eight people playing you take out seven you know different
(21:06):
suits so not suits but like what am I looking for here sex right.
So you take out all the fours all the sixes all whatever for that many people that are
playing and then shuffle them up.
Everybody starts out with the same amount of cards.
Basically your goal is to get a full set so you're trying to get all sets or all eights
or whatever it is.
(21:27):
You see you need to match all your cards and you pick one up and then plays one down and
it's kind of a rhythm thing too because you just keep it going.
Like everybody's kind of all on the same rhythm and as soon as you get your four you got to
snag a spoon from the middle of the table.
Sneaky like.
Yeah sneaky like but quick because then everybody else last one to grab a spoon loses.
(21:50):
Yeah or you have like one less feeling like like musical chairs.
Yeah yeah exactly.
You know I haven't played in a long time but it's a fun one.
That's something where in college I found out there's probably a dozen different variations
of that game.
Yeah.
I thought I knew how to play it and then everybody's like playing a different way they're like wait
wait a minute you know.
Yeah exactly.
(22:11):
They're all kind of similar and they all have to like pick up the spoon as the you know the
main thing.
Yeah.
It's funny how I thought I knew the official version and it turns out there's like at least
three or four different ones.
Well I learned that game at that little camp I was talking about earlier so I don't even
know if there's official rules to that game.
That might have been a kid version that somebody made up yeah.
(22:34):
Yeah I when I played spoons in college we played extreme spoons where we would put the
spoons like in another room.
We played it outside where we headed up at the top of a hill and so like as soon as somebody
gets their matches like we're running and like tackling it was awesome.
It was a fun time.
Yeah that's exercise bro.
Yeah.
It's a hard pass.
(22:54):
It's a purpose though man because like yeah the whole point is to be discreet but if you
see somebody taking off you're taking off.
Yeah yeah exactly.
Yeah anyways so that was favorite board games and card games as kids.
Now what about like young adult to now what are some of your favorites some memories you
(23:16):
have.
Let's go with Jeff first.
So young adults card wise we seem to switch to a game called pitch when I went to college
and then post college a while past college we had friends teach us two other games that
are our kids favorites now which is pickle which Dave and I have a friend named Levi
Davis and we're pretty sure that he just made up the rules.
(23:37):
So the first time we played like you'd be three rounds in and some new rule would show
up or whatever.
We're like wait a second I think this is just helping Levi and then we have another set
of friends.
I don't know if you know the Collins but Andy and Roy Colin one of her family members came
up with is called Man of Shevitz which is a version I think of phase 10 but with what
(24:01):
I think is better rules because in phase 10 you have to get a card from someone next to
you whereas in Man of Shevitz you can buy a card and just get that card plus another
card on top and then it doesn't matter everyone goes to the next phase.
If you don't lay down you just get more points and then you go to the next phase and so card
games yeah I would say nowadays we get together and the best thing about pickle and Man of
(24:24):
Shevitz is you can play with more than four people you can play with six eight ten people
and a ten begins a little bit unruly for both of those games but you can figure it out.
Board games in college is probably risk or scrabble type stuff like I mentioned sometime
after I around when I joined the military we got really into board games and so some
(24:44):
of the favorites that we've had over the years first one was pandemic legacy it's the only
legacy game I've ever played so pandemics fine by itself but legacy is you pay a lot
of money for a game that you can play between 12 and 24 times and then throw it out because
it changes the board permanently as more as you start in January if you beat January you
(25:04):
go to February if you don't you get one more chance at January but every time you lose
like you permanently damage cities or scar players and then you can and so if you win
you go to the next one so you're gonna play between 12 and 24 times but it's neat too
because you're playing a certain way to win in January that the rules change and that
might hurt you when you get to May or June so that's by far my favorite game that and
(25:29):
that's best if you can if you have like four people that can play every round and so you
stay together from the beginning of the game to the end I would say some of the favorites
family-wise is viticulture it's it's really a winemaking game where not not real wine
but it's a board game that you you plant vines you harvest grapes and then you make wine
(25:50):
and that's it takes a while to play but it's that for whatever reason is some of our kids
favorites other ones really popular Splendor Katana but only if you add the cities and
nights expansion set so I think that makes Katana a better game and then some quicker
games that the kids like to play are just one or welcome to where welcome to or take
(26:15):
five so you can play with three to however many people with some of those games and then
lately a secret Hitler or what Scott and the grandma's really involved the last two holidays
is not a board game but among us so yeah the game that you can play with 15 people on your
all on your phones or whatever but yes did you say grandma gets it on it oh yeah so Sarah's
(26:39):
mom is the most fun she's had with the kids probably in years and so over Thanksgiving
and it was just really funny awesome my older boy will put up with what I would say longer
games and so one example is Spirit Island and it's a wonderful player game we've taken
it out twice and taken at least two and a half hours and not finish the game and it
(27:03):
would be like it'd be like 1230 or one in the morning we're like we're like we'll try
again some other time and so and then I have another one that's called Ark Nova which is
supposed to be a really great game but we just the instruction booklet is just overwhelming
and so we haven't actually gotten through a play of that but yes what I do is I go on
boardgamegeek.com and it'll show you rankings for family games or strategy games or overall
(27:27):
games and so we end up most of them are pretty good every now and then you'll buy something
that's ranked really high and you're like I don't understand how that was ranked high
but for the most part yeah they're great nice this episode is brought to you by boardgamegeek.com
so Jeff real quick since you mentioned time you had a shorter version and longer version
what would you call short versus long what's kind of the time durations you're talking
(27:50):
about okay so to get my kids to play I do which is weird because those two card games
I talked about like Man of Shevitz can take three hours to play but don't play it but
a board game if a board game is taking longer than 60 definitely longer than 90 minutes
they're questioning which is also ironic because viticulture I'm not sure we've ever finished
in under 90 minutes but for whatever reason my two older kids like viticulture but yeah
(28:15):
if a game that will take less than 60 minutes there's some that are great like the crew
has like a space one and an undersea one or whatever and it changes the rules every round
and you can play around in 10 minutes or less and so that type of game is great but yeah
we kind of separate it into the long ones like I said Spirit Island will take you at
(28:36):
least two hours after you learn how to play the game Arc Nova will probably be an hour
and a half to two hours we're gonna have to put a list in the show notes for sure of like
your top ones it's awesome right and and and then there's I didn't mention them but there's
also I think a couple of really good two-player games like Patchwork or Japer Hive Balloon
Cup and one good thing we talked about BoardGameGeek.com but what Dave is also familiar with is we love
(29:02):
to play games on BoardGameArena.com it doesn't have every board game but it has a lot of
the ones that we've talked about and if you have one person that has an account they can
host games with friends and so there were times that me and my wife Dave his wife and
our friends Levi and Kim could get together when we're in different states and play and
that actually got me through my year at Saudi there a couple times a week I would get on
(29:23):
BoardGameArena.com and play board games with my kids and that was a way to stay connected
when you're not home that's awesome man that's awesome yeah so I don't know Jeff if you have
a threshold of time but what about you John and Ben you guys have a time threshold on
the game where you're just like this is too long I can't do it I get frustrated like the
longer it goes like I won't play Monopoly anymore yeah yeah once you know it's the same
(29:51):
thing every trip around this it's just not funny and yeah my sister's in live they have
a game a play called Shanghai Roman which is also just a variation of phase 10 and my
goodness it took forever to get through it I wanted to go home so bad and like some people
were like ready but after this 12 freaking rounds and like I was ready to go after round
(30:16):
10 and then people were like no we need to finish we need to finish that's right that's
right to the better end I know I know Jeff's a purist so well like I said everything Spirit
Iron was probably the only game that I can recall not finishing and it was just it was
complex and took forever and we started starting at 10 38 nights probably not ideal either
(30:38):
right we started late too on that I don't know played once no granted it was fun but
when they were all loopy and you know doing what they were doing it's like man to get
people to pay attention there their attention span ran really quick yeah so Ben did you
have a threshold do you want to share oh just it depends on the game I mean obviously some
(31:01):
games are just more fun and you can keep going and other games I get tired of pretty fast
I have got the point now where I am not so competitive with Monopoly anymore like I'm
just like yeah let's just let them win you know like it's not so fun when you're like
hanging on for dear life but you have no chance of winning really yeah yeah exactly playing
(31:25):
and playing when you still know you're not gonna win it's like I just get out now you
know like this year I just getting lucky once in a while and it's not that much fun to like
just happen to roll you know on chance once in a while and bypass all your hotels you
know yeah yeah my family has really gotten into recently a bunch of games that can take
(31:48):
two to three hours especially when we first learned it and there are some days I'm up
for that and some days I'm not yeah that makes sense just depends on the mood hey thanks
so much for listening to part one of this episode stay tuned for more fun in part two
Throughout the day, we hope you find the job though – something that will change your
(32:14):
lives forever.
Thank you.
Whatever really happened to dudes calling each other best friends?
(00:05):
Dave and John grew up in the 80s in New Jersey and they did everything together.
They were the quintessential best friends until they became teenagers and Dave moved
away.
Fast forward to today and these two 40-somethings reconnected and decided to not only be besties
again but to put on a podcast and share their reunion with anyone who will listen.
(00:25):
Welcome to Fat, Dumb and Happy.
Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to a very fun episode of Fat, Dumb and Happy.
Grab your Monopoly money, dust off those Uno cards and pop that Pop-O-Matic bubble because
tonight we are talking all about board games and card games.
Tonight's episode is for 4 players ages 44 and up but y'all can tag along as we discuss
(00:46):
games from the 80s to today.
Stick around because it's going to be a great time.
My name is Dave, I'll be your host for this episode and left of the dealer is my bro host
John.
What's up John?
What's going on everybody?
Dave, this better be a great episode otherwise I'm gonna flip this table.
You know it's gonna be good.
So John, I got a question for you.
Go ahead man.
(01:07):
What color game piece do you pick?
It's weird because I was thinking about this earlier.
I just don't remember there being many different colors more just like pieces and stuff like
that but usually the blue.
You know Monopoly I was gonna try to be the car.
Gotta be the car?
Gotta be the car, yeah.
How critical was that like when you were playing with your sister or playing with other friends
(01:29):
or whatever like was that a pretty big deal to get the one that you wanted?
I played better.
I swear in my head I played better.
Yeah man.
I was a better real estate guy.
That's right.
All right with us also pulling out the game instructions and arguing about the rules is
our in-house special guest expert Ben.
Are we playing house rules tonight Ben?
(01:50):
Oh yeah and I got a wild draw for you.
Nice.
Dang it.
That's awesome.
All right so tonight we have a super special guest expert my buddy and board game master
Jeff.
How you doing tonight Jeff?
I'm good Dave.
Glad to be here.
Yes awesome.
(02:11):
So Jeff and I go back to 2013 I believe when we were both on active duty in the Air Force
and we were stationed at the same duty location and right away I could tell Jeff was
a fun hang.
I knew we would be buddies and I also right away found out that he is a board game lover.
That job was so fun because of Jeff.
(02:34):
I think I talked about it in our jobs episode but during our lunch breaks we would bust
out board games card games and just play every single lunch pretty much and on our little
tdy's and everything else it was a good time.
So Jeff tell us why you are a board game expert.
Tell us a little bit about your love of board games.
Similar to you guys I probably grew up playing board games with the family and then sometime
(02:56):
when I joined the military I got into a couple of games that are pretty common now whether
it's a katan and ticket to ride and then finding out a site called boardgamegeek.com and through
their recommendations my wife calls me a board game snob nowadays but we have about 170 games.
(03:16):
My kids for years were pretty receptive.
They understood every birthday and every Christmas that they were each going to get a board game
and so we were able to expand about eight games a year because we have my wife and the
four kids.
That's been a big thing.
That's what we do.
We like to watch a lot of movies and we like to play a lot of board games and so during
covid it was a good example.
(03:38):
We did the month of may after covid started we played a different board game every day
and then we kept a scoreboard and so we figured out who was the board game king for queen
for the house and I barely beat out Charlie, Dave if you remember him but a couple of points
but it was a close one.
Nice.
No yeah Jeff is a he's very strategic.
(03:59):
He's very good at his games and I have seen that wall of board games in real life so and
I'm sure it's bigger than the last time I saw it and it's pretty awesome man.
Hopefully the new house has like a dedicated room just for board games.
I don't know.
So how's that?
We pretty much cover the basement one of the basement walls so it's pretty nice.
Forget the specialty mug room.
He's got a true game room.
(04:20):
Yes.
That's geez.
That's awesome man.
All right.
So speaking of the number of games is a quick disclaimer.
You know there are an insane amount of board games out there and we don't claim to be a
fish in autos maybe Jeff but the rest of us not so much.
So if we miss any of your faves give us a five star review and let us know.
(04:40):
We'll definitely bring it up next time.
So all right let's turn it over to the food portion.
John talk us through it.
So everybody knows we all eat a food and that food is related to the topic of the conversation
of a podcast tonight which tonight will be board games.
This one was probably a little bit easier than some of our other ones have been lately.
Dave let's start with you.
(05:01):
What do you got going on?
All right.
So I have this right here.
I don't know if you can see it.
It's basically a grocery bag.
Yeah it's a grocery bag and it is full of miscellaneous candy.
So for a while there on Sunday evenings we would play games as a family.
But here's the thing.
I got three kids and they're each six years apart.
So finding a game that all three can you know get excited about is pretty hard.
(05:26):
So we would bribe them with their leftover Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's whatever
candy that we always have like this big old bag of.
Do you guys have that Ben?
Jeff do you have like an area where your like leftover candy goes?
No we eat it Dave.
What's leftover candy?
Wait this is Pat Dumb and Happy.
What am I thinking?
Yeah that's right.
I mean if it's leftover it's never going to get eaten.
(05:48):
It's like banana laffy taffy.
Yeah exactly.
Great example.
Ben do you guys have one?
Yeah exactly.
I know about that.
You know some of my kids hang on to them faster than others you know.
And so like Jacob he has a stash of like 50 packs of Smarties that he saves for like.
(06:12):
That's my boy.
He's not willing to give up but he doesn't you know he doesn't actually eat very often.
Yeah just every now and then you got that craving so that's awesome.
All right I'm gonna reach in and just grab a random thing and let's see.
I got Skittles but unfortunately it's got the Halloween markings on it so it's been
(06:33):
a couple of months but that's all right.
Should be okay still.
So all right.
It's good to have a black licorice.
No don't you say it.
Don't you dare.
All right Ben over to you.
What do you got?
So when I think of games I think of pretzels for some reason.
I don't know why.
It's just one of those things like like popcorners for movies you know.
And pretzels I think of as the kind of cliche get together with some friends and play some
(06:58):
games together.
Yeah.
It's got a mix of pretzel stuff and it's got a little tiny hint of mustard which I normally
don't like but with pretzels is like my one acceptable like yeah take it.
It's good.
Heck yeah.
Nice.
All right.
All right.
Jeff what do you got?
Well I was just playing today before we started so there's two things a couple years ago I
(07:20):
spent a year downrange in Saudi Arabia and so I look forward to my wife sending out it
was Snyder's Twisted Pretzels the season version.
I don't know they take way too many seasonings and put them on the pretzels but they were
amazing.
So between that and what I call a single serve bag of peanut butter M&Ms which is not like
a small bag but it's a family size.
(07:42):
I got it.
Explain to Dave that I had both of those about a week ago but they didn't make it to tonight.
So I'm just gonna have regular pretzels this evening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Awesome.
The guys they put on the things now that's a that's a lameness man.
Yeah.
Dude the Snyder's pretzel is like the everything bagel of pretzels man it's got so much seasoning
(08:06):
on that thing.
Yeah.
My sister's got like four different flavored pretzels from them right now in the pantry.
So good.
What about you John what do you got?
Yeah so I had two different ways I could go.
One I was gonna do you know some Domino's pizza.
Yeah.
Some place in Domino's man.
Throw some bones.
There you go.
I'm gonna go with an apple trying to be good.
(08:28):
There you go.
For an apple with you know apples versus apples.
Always a good game to play.
So yeah.
Going with the apple.
Nice.
Apples to apples good one.
I like it.
All right Ben break it down for us.
What's going on?
All right well we're talking everything board games and card games and all that but we want
to start off with just maybe board games as a kid you know what are the things that stood
(08:53):
out to you?
One of the like the first ones you were introduced to or the ones that stood out in your childhood
that you know really bring back the memories.
How about you John why don't you go first?
Yeah so for me I just really like playing sorry as a kid.
I don't know why it was like the simplest of games and making somebody go all the way
back to the start was always fun but that was one.
(09:16):
I always think though as a family and this is where I got my love for word games we always
played bobble.
Yeah.
And my brothers and sisters hated me because I even at a young age I was really good at
like seeing words within words and making the most of it and I think I held my own as
a kid.
(09:37):
I think I did pretty good and so like now one of the games I play on my iPad I play
at least you know three four five times a week just a word scramble type game but I
always love those type of games.
So yeah that was any word game that's kind of where it stems from for me.
Right back at you Ben what about for you?
Well first of all if I want to say yeah and bobble is definitely a good one man and it's
(09:59):
funny because as a kid you know most of my siblings were a lot older than me and I always
felt like like I was doing pretty well like oh man I got this big long list and then they
would have me cross out everything like everything.
Yeah.
So I would be happy you know if I had two or three you know that like they didn't get
(10:20):
like oh yeah I was a smart guy because I got one or two you know even though I was like
losing I felt actually good about myself that I actually caught a few that they didn't get
you know.
That's a great feeling.
Oh yeah great feeling.
Or if they try to call you on it being spelled wrong you're like no no I'm right.
Yeah.
(10:40):
So awesome.
I think if I got it wrong they were merciful to me and just like let it go because I didn't
have much.
Dude or if you found like a six or seven letter or something crazy you're like yeah that's
a winning the lottery.
Yeah.
Yes.
As far as for me I don't know one of my favorite games was Clue and it was hard to play because
(11:04):
a lot of times it was like you had to get enough people to play for it to be fun you
know and a lot of times my older siblings didn't really want to you know.
And so it didn't happen too often but that was one of my favorites.
There's a couple that bring back memories from my grandpa whenever we would go to his
house there's one that's called booby trap and basically it's got pressure pushed on
(11:29):
a bunch of circular discs that you could pull out one by one and as you pull it out the
bar that's pushing against it slides forward and stuff and you know if you pull the wrong
one it just basically smashes them all.
And so that was kind of a nerve wracking one.
It kind of reminded me of like Operation or something like that where you're like oh if
I pull the wrong thing this could totally blow up on me you know.
(11:53):
And then another one again this was not one I was very good at but I remember my grandpa
loved it.
It was called Caram and it's where you lose these like circular discs that you kind of
you know flick and try to knock them into these corner pockets sort of like pool I guess
you could say.
You have to knock your slider thing into them and that was a pretty fun one too.
Okay so just real quick on that Dave you remember me taking you to the park program?
(12:17):
Yes dude.
I played Caram all the time.
Yeah when Ben mentioned Caram I saw that earlier I started thinking about when we were growing
up we had this park program basically where your parents can go dump you for the day and
you know you do crafts or whatever and you know play around kickball whatever it is but
all the different parks have their own little setup.
(12:38):
And between Caram and also I think I might have mentioned it later down there Knock Hockey
remember Knock Hockey?
Oh yeah Knock Hockey dude yes.
They always had like championships like between the parks.
I was that's champion once.
Nice.
You're good dude.
What is Knock Hockey?
And that sounds interesting.
Dave's gonna have to bring it up.
It's just like a miniature little hockey thing.
(13:00):
Like literally these little hockey sticks are all a piece of wood.
The corners have like these little edges to them so you can kind of sweep it around and
they have a block right in front if I remember correctly.
Let's see.
Dave's pulling it up here.
Oh yeah.
So it's not like tabletop size it's a little bit bigger.
It wasn't like in that picture it made it look really small but it was a decent size.
It sounds fun.
Yeah.
(13:21):
All right well what about you Dave?
So I was thinking about it and it's funny but I feel like when it came to board games
my memories are pretty much all tied to John.
Like I think I had too much energy to play board games at home and I think being the
youngest of the seven I never had a chance especially with our sisters they're like so
good at board games.
(13:42):
So anyways I remember playing Guess Who with John.
Actually remember playing the game of life that was classic.
Battleship and Simon.
Remember Simon the electronic leg beep beep beep beep.
You had to like repeat it or whatever.
Yeah and they came out like with full grip.
I feel like there were so many knockoffs of that game and I don't think we had the original
(14:05):
one but we had at least a couple of those interesting knockoff ones where you have to
like twist it or bop it or swing it or whatever you know.
Yeah from the Simon.
Yeah yeah exactly.
Yeah and then there's like a thousand different versions of Monopoly now.
Yeah yeah.
So yeah good time.
What about you Jeff what were some of your childhood favorites?
(14:27):
You guys mentioned a couple of them.
Growing up I had one older brother that was one year older than me and then a brother
that was 10 years younger.
We played a lot of two player games like Stratego or chess or checkers when I was growing up.
As I got a little bit older I think the main board game we played as a family was Trival
Pursuit which was very frustrating for me because my brother and my dad's memory was
(14:47):
just ridiculous.
And so we played that a lot we probably had four or six different versions.
Of course when I started dating Sarah that Dave knows there was enough times that someone
in my family would be like well this is an easy one and then my wife wouldn't know it.
And so when we got married all Trival Pursuit games were given away.
So we have not one Trival Pursuit game left in the house.
(15:09):
But yeah so Trival Pursuit but really what we spent a lot of time in is what we're going
to talk about next is card games as a kid.
So that was probably the biggest thing for us was playing cards with my parents.
And so why don't we go ahead and kick that off.
Ben what kind of card games do you like as a kid.
So one of my favorite games and I don't know if this is really what it's called but we
(15:29):
called it Spit.
And basically you had these stack of cards that can go up or down in numbers and you
could as fast as you want just start laying them out and pounding them down up and down
and up and down so it'd be like five four three four five three four you know.
And you just put them out as fast as you can.
(15:52):
That was a really fun one.
Another one we played was I mean we just played so much Uno.
We had just various versions of Uno.
We had one we called Match where you know you could play out of turn.
That was you know I think they now have that as part of like a house rules thing that's
like built into the game.
Right.
And we had that from way early on before we ever heard of that I think.
(16:13):
I don't know who started it.
Inspired by the two managers.
Right.
I remember playing that at your house at your table in that room in the little dining room
right there.
That's where I met Mitch.
We played it a lot.
We played it a lot.
Another one we didn't play so much but I did kind of find it fun was called Milborne and
it was a car racing game where you could give each other flat tires and add a gas and stuff
(16:39):
like that and it was kind of fun.
You could also have these protection cards where like it was like you know impervious
unbreakable tire and so someone tries to give you flat tire you suddenly pull out your unbreakable
tire and it kind of gets extra points or something like that.
I can't remember exactly but that was a pretty fun one too I thought as a kid.
(17:02):
That sounds familiar.
I'm gonna have to pull up that just to see what it looks like.
I've never heard of this Milborne.
It's like a French game I think and so my dad went to France for his mission and then
we had cousins that lived like in France for a while as well and so when they would come
to visit once in a while they would bring out this Milborne game and I always thought
(17:23):
it was super fun.
Yeah the box looks familiar.
I think you know when I came around I think all our card games and board games everything
was missing like pieces and stuff and I just got the cards.
You made it hard to do it.
They put a stop sign on you and then there's like no more green.
Yeah.
I'm like all these games are broken.
(17:45):
What was the game that you guys always had sitting around with the little stones and
the beads and you go from one to.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My call I think is another name for it but we called it worry.
Yeah or we called it worry.
I think that's another name for it too so yeah we got to move the beads to the other
end you try to get all yours to the other side or whatever and landing it just right
(18:08):
in one clears the other side and gets you an extra extra turns and things like that
was it's a fun game for sure.
All right for me you know like Ben said we played all kinds of Uno family games.
There's what we called oh heck where you had a trump card and you had a you had a bid beforehand
how many tricks you're going to win.
Yeah it was fun and then war I remember playing war with John good times and I also remember
(18:32):
playing 52 pickup.
That was a good time.
Yep yep and a younger sibling out there has played that game many a time.
Yes I remember you having Liz play that game for sure.
That was fun.
Once or twice.
Yeah.
What about you Jeff what do you got.
I rocked the first card game we learned playing as a kid was pinnacle so double duck pinnacle
for players.
(18:53):
So it's a big moment when me and my older brother could stop being paired with one of
our parents and then me and him would take on my mom and dad.
So it took us several years to get to that point but pinnacle for a long time and then
the other backups to that especially growing up in the Midwest was Euker and spades and
so in high school spades.
But yeah a family vacation when I was a little kid pinnacle double duck pinnacle for sure.
(19:17):
The pinnacle I've never played it and it just for me it sounds so old.
It seems like an old game.
It's awesome though man.
I've been ready to go to the senior center for a long time Dave.
Yeah such a great kid.
It's awesome.
If I could live in a senior housing like apartment complex right now I would.
Yeah.
Give me together with a bunch of old people play.
(19:38):
I have never learned bridge.
So my parents had a bridge group every month but that's the one game so heart spades Euker
pinnacle no problem for whatever region even canasta.
I actually learned that later in life but yeah give me any card game I'm in.
What's the one with the with the pegs that we would play at FIT.
Oh cribbage.
(19:59):
Yeah.
It's a good time to you can play that with two three or four people.
Yeah.
Quidditch is awesome.
Oh cribbage.
Yeah.
I can't wait for that senior center man when they bring us food and change our diapers.
Just yeah just stay in bed all day.
That's gonna be awesome.
You're gonna be like Jeff's gonna be like the king of that place man.
(20:20):
Yeah he is.
Just like getting everyone's medicine by winning card games and stuff against them.
How about this good sleeping pills.
I'll raise you.
I'll see those sleeping pills and raises a diuretic.
So I don't know whatever.
John what about you.
Yeah.
So like men say that we're growing up it was always a fun one and then spoons.
(20:44):
You guys ever play spoons.
Oh yeah I love spoons.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So for those who don't know spoons basically however many people are playing you take that
many sets out of the deck.
So if you have us for playing well you probably it's better with more people but you got to
know let's say there are seven or eight people playing you take out seven you know different
(21:06):
suits so not suits but like what am I looking for here sex right.
So you take out all the fours all the sixes all whatever for that many people that are
playing and then shuffle them up.
Everybody starts out with the same amount of cards.
Basically your goal is to get a full set so you're trying to get all sets or all eights
or whatever it is.
(21:27):
You see you need to match all your cards and you pick one up and then plays one down and
it's kind of a rhythm thing too because you just keep it going.
Like everybody's kind of all on the same rhythm and as soon as you get your four you got to
snag a spoon from the middle of the table.
Sneaky like.
Yeah sneaky like but quick because then everybody else last one to grab a spoon loses.
(21:50):
Yeah or you have like one less feeling like like musical chairs.
Yeah yeah exactly.
You know I haven't played in a long time but it's a fun one.
That's something where in college I found out there's probably a dozen different variations
of that game.
Yeah.
I thought I knew how to play it and then everybody's like playing a different way they're like wait
wait a minute you know.
Yeah exactly.
(22:11):
They're all kind of similar and they all have to like pick up the spoon as the you know the
main thing.
Yeah.
It's funny how I thought I knew the official version and it turns out there's like at least
three or four different ones.
Well I learned that game at that little camp I was talking about earlier so I don't even
know if there's official rules to that game.
That might have been a kid version that somebody made up yeah.
(22:34):
Yeah I when I played spoons in college we played extreme spoons where we would put the
spoons like in another room.
We played it outside where we headed up at the top of a hill and so like as soon as somebody
gets their matches like we're running and like tackling it was awesome.
It was a fun time.
Yeah that's exercise bro.
Yeah.
It's a hard pass.
(22:54):
It's a purpose though man because like yeah the whole point is to be discreet but if you
see somebody taking off you're taking off.
Yeah yeah exactly.
Yeah anyways so that was favorite board games and card games as kids.
Now what about like young adult to now what are some of your favorites some memories you
(23:16):
have.
Let's go with Jeff first.
So young adults card wise we seem to switch to a game called pitch when I went to college
and then post college a while past college we had friends teach us two other games that
are our kids favorites now which is pickle which Dave and I have a friend named Levi
Davis and we're pretty sure that he just made up the rules.
(23:37):
So the first time we played like you'd be three rounds in and some new rule would show
up or whatever.
We're like wait a second I think this is just helping Levi and then we have another set
of friends.
I don't know if you know the Collins but Andy and Roy Colin one of her family members came
up with is called Man of Shevitz which is a version I think of phase 10 but with what
(24:01):
I think is better rules because in phase 10 you have to get a card from someone next to
you whereas in Man of Shevitz you can buy a card and just get that card plus another
card on top and then it doesn't matter everyone goes to the next phase.
If you don't lay down you just get more points and then you go to the next phase and so card
games yeah I would say nowadays we get together and the best thing about pickle and Man of
(24:24):
Shevitz is you can play with more than four people you can play with six eight ten people
and a ten begins a little bit unruly for both of those games but you can figure it out.
Board games in college is probably risk or scrabble type stuff like I mentioned sometime
after I around when I joined the military we got really into board games and so some
(24:44):
of the favorites that we've had over the years first one was pandemic legacy it's the only
legacy game I've ever played so pandemics fine by itself but legacy is you pay a lot
of money for a game that you can play between 12 and 24 times and then throw it out because
it changes the board permanently as more as you start in January if you beat January you
(25:04):
go to February if you don't you get one more chance at January but every time you lose
like you permanently damage cities or scar players and then you can and so if you win
you go to the next one so you're gonna play between 12 and 24 times but it's neat too
because you're playing a certain way to win in January that the rules change and that
might hurt you when you get to May or June so that's by far my favorite game that and
(25:29):
that's best if you can if you have like four people that can play every round and so you
stay together from the beginning of the game to the end I would say some of the favorites
family-wise is viticulture it's it's really a winemaking game where not not real wine
but it's a board game that you you plant vines you harvest grapes and then you make wine
(25:50):
and that's it takes a while to play but it's that for whatever reason is some of our kids
favorites other ones really popular Splendor Katana but only if you add the cities and
nights expansion set so I think that makes Katana a better game and then some quicker
games that the kids like to play are just one or welcome to where welcome to or take
(26:15):
five so you can play with three to however many people with some of those games and then
lately a secret Hitler or what Scott and the grandma's really involved the last two holidays
is not a board game but among us so yeah the game that you can play with 15 people on your
all on your phones or whatever but yes did you say grandma gets it on it oh yeah so Sarah's
(26:39):
mom is the most fun she's had with the kids probably in years and so over Thanksgiving
and it was just really funny awesome my older boy will put up with what I would say longer
games and so one example is Spirit Island and it's a wonderful player game we've taken
it out twice and taken at least two and a half hours and not finish the game and it
(27:03):
would be like it'd be like 1230 or one in the morning we're like we're like we'll try
again some other time and so and then I have another one that's called Ark Nova which is
supposed to be a really great game but we just the instruction booklet is just overwhelming
and so we haven't actually gotten through a play of that but yes what I do is I go on
boardgamegeek.com and it'll show you rankings for family games or strategy games or overall
(27:27):
games and so we end up most of them are pretty good every now and then you'll buy something
that's ranked really high and you're like I don't understand how that was ranked high
but for the most part yeah they're great nice this episode is brought to you by boardgamegeek.com
so Jeff real quick since you mentioned time you had a shorter version and longer version
what would you call short versus long what's kind of the time durations you're talking
(27:50):
about okay so to get my kids to play I do which is weird because those two card games
I talked about like Man of Shevitz can take three hours to play but don't play it but
a board game if a board game is taking longer than 60 definitely longer than 90 minutes
they're questioning which is also ironic because viticulture I'm not sure we've ever finished
in under 90 minutes but for whatever reason my two older kids like viticulture but yeah
(28:15):
if a game that will take less than 60 minutes there's some that are great like the crew
has like a space one and an undersea one or whatever and it changes the rules every round
and you can play around in 10 minutes or less and so that type of game is great but yeah
we kind of separate it into the long ones like I said Spirit Island will take you at
(28:36):
least two hours after you learn how to play the game Arc Nova will probably be an hour
and a half to two hours we're gonna have to put a list in the show notes for sure of like
your top ones it's awesome right and and and then there's I didn't mention them but there's
also I think a couple of really good two-player games like Patchwork or Japer Hive Balloon
Cup and one good thing we talked about BoardGameGeek.com but what Dave is also familiar with is we love
(29:02):
to play games on BoardGameArena.com it doesn't have every board game but it has a lot of
the ones that we've talked about and if you have one person that has an account they can
host games with friends and so there were times that me and my wife Dave his wife and
our friends Levi and Kim could get together when we're in different states and play and
that actually got me through my year at Saudi there a couple times a week I would get on
(29:23):
BoardGameArena.com and play board games with my kids and that was a way to stay connected
when you're not home that's awesome man that's awesome yeah so I don't know Jeff if you have
a threshold of time but what about you John and Ben you guys have a time threshold on
the game where you're just like this is too long I can't do it I get frustrated like the
longer it goes like I won't play Monopoly anymore yeah yeah once you know it's the same
(29:51):
thing every trip around this it's just not funny and yeah my sister's in live they have
a game a play called Shanghai Roman which is also just a variation of phase 10 and my
goodness it took forever to get through it I wanted to go home so bad and like some people
were like ready but after this 12 freaking rounds and like I was ready to go after round
(30:16):
10 and then people were like no we need to finish we need to finish that's right that's
right to the better end I know I know Jeff's a purist so well like I said everything Spirit
Iron was probably the only game that I can recall not finishing and it was just it was
complex and took forever and we started starting at 10 38 nights probably not ideal either
(30:38):
right we started late too on that I don't know played once no granted it was fun but
when they were all loopy and you know doing what they were doing it's like man to get
people to pay attention there their attention span ran really quick yeah so Ben did you
have a threshold do you want to share oh just it depends on the game I mean obviously some
(31:01):
games are just more fun and you can keep going and other games I get tired of pretty fast
I have got the point now where I am not so competitive with Monopoly anymore like I'm
just like yeah let's just let them win you know like it's not so fun when you're like
hanging on for dear life but you have no chance of winning really yeah yeah exactly playing
(31:25):
and playing when you still know you're not gonna win it's like I just get out now you
know like this year I just getting lucky once in a while and it's not that much fun to like
just happen to roll you know on chance once in a while and bypass all your hotels you
know yeah yeah my family has really gotten into recently a bunch of games that can take
(31:48):
two to three hours especially when we first learned it and there are some days I'm up
for that and some days I'm not yeah that makes sense just depends on the mood hey thanks
so much for listening to part one of this episode stay tuned for more fun in part two
Throughout the day, we hope you find the job though – something that will change your
(32:14):
lives forever.
Thank you.
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