hey I’m Alex Radical from Board Gameco and this is News and Weekend Review where we’re going to go through a variety of news pieces the uh creator spotlight of the week we do have one of those the videos I covered this past week the games I covered this past week all of that and more links and timestamps to everything down below let’s go ahead and start off with the news we do have a lot of news to go through although technically this first piece we covered in yesterday’s video so if you missed that check out that or just get this shorter version of it but uh Sean Sean has now sold Zombicide they are now part of Aszmid as has purchased homicide as announced that they’re kind of doing acquisitions again seimon has been selling stuff off so this kind of feels like it works especially considering Aset already does the distribution for Simon so like they already have the line set up so to speak and now they just have to like take the the thing and make all the stuff off the thing so to speak uh this does not include deceased it does not include uh Marvel Zombies i I assume it doesn’t include anything adjacent to that that doesn’t bear the actual Zombicide name uh overall I again I covered my full thoughts yesterday’s video board Game Wire has a fantastic article as well as they usually do but the general idea is this definitely does set up Seimon for success in theory while of course we also know that that’s no guarantee the reality is unless you and I are looking at the books and understand what’s going on behind the scenes this could be like “Oh my gosh great this is the cast infusion they need to like write the ship alternatively it could be nothing because like we have seen like with Mythic Games when they were going through that like slowly losing hope phase they also sold off some IPs and that didn’t seem to make a difference so we we factually know that selling off IPs does not mean that the ship is rated we also know that there was a rumored sale of unlicensed uh un unnamed IPs uh for I believe 12 million board Game Wire reported on this months ago a long time ago there was $12 million in reported unnamed IPs we don’t know it seems like that buyer fell through so I have no idea what Sean has actually made off of all these whether it’s Zombicide or uh their previous sale Tabletop Tycoon of Rising Sun Blood Rage i don’t know what they actually got off that but I would venture that it does seem like it probably set them up for success so again no guarantees but also good news especially if you are waiting on a bunch of undelivered campaigns there you go in like 90 seconds I covered everything I did in my 13-minute video yesterday i did the video because people were asking for a dedicated video so there we go anyways honestly I’ll tell you I’ll tell you why I did the video here’s why I did the video pause this is not in the video script the reason I did this video is because the reality is that sometimes okay how to put this i I work for for for Gamebound we we know that hopefully most of you watching that know that i don’t hide it i talk about all the time i don’t mention it in every video honestly I used to mention it in more videos but then I get pushed back on that i got pushed back either way i got pushed back for not mentioning it enough and I got pushed back for mentioning it too much whatever i’m going to do what I’m going to do and hope that most of you are on board for the ride while obviously trying not to hide anything at all but the balance is once upon a time I talked about that when you have conflict of interest it’s not enough to not be biased it’s also important to avoid even the appearance of bias that’s something that took me a while to learn unfortunately for a while I kind of took the stance of like hey look at look at the overall picture you can see X Y and Z and I didn’t like focus on okay well I need to be mindful of how things appear even if I could back it up by saying look at the big picture i need to be looking at the small picture too and just be aware of the consequences of the small picture because not everyone is going to watch all of my videos or know everything that goes on a big part of the reason why I decided to do a dedicated video on the zombide sale is specifically because I don’t think it’s the same level of news as the other times I’ve done dedicated videos on stores closing or companies closing but the problem is if I don’t do a dedicated video on Sean and I only do dedicated videos on other companies and because Sean switched over to Gamefound there could be the appearance of oh yeah Alex is only willing to shine a spotlight on things when it doesn’t affect their creators which by the way Final Frontier Games has used Gamefound as well so I think they half count as their creators but anyways that’s a big part of why I want to do a dedicated video because people were asking for it and I do agree that there’s a potential bias or potential appearance of bias if they’re the one time I don’t but also I covered in 90 seconds what I did in the 13-minute video yesterday so like there’s that it’s a trade-off i’m I’m just trying to do the best I can and I appreciate all of you for sticking with me while I do anyways now that we’ve gotten the news piece and the tangent out of the way let’s go ahead to the next section over here which is going to be Trump says China will supply rare earths US to allows that okay I don’t care what the title over here but basically uh the main reason I have this article up is because tariffs are going to be going back to 55% so not 145% which is great also even 30% was considered bad so 55% is uh not considered better now to be clear from what I’ve seen of this it’s not 100% clear exactly how this going to play out in which industries i’ve seen conflicting information i don’t know myself i just I’ve seen conflicting reports as to whether this will or won’t apply to board games so whether the tariffs on boards will go up or not not clear but it certainly seems like there’s potential for it to go up and I will say that until I see otherwise it’s not it’s not great it’s not it’s not 145% but also it’s definitely still not as good as 0% uh I’m good at math that way then we have over here we have the Lord of the Rings the Confrontation Ultimate Edition Ultimate Edition this was uh speaking of potential biases and my desire to cover things regardless of what’s going on uh basically Ghost Galaxy who runs their campaigns on Gamefound they announced that they are doing a uh Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation that’s not news they announced it a while ago what they did today is they showed the ultimate pledge now this is still a board game this is still a regular version of Lord of the Rings the Confrontation a re-implementation you can get your hands on that’s still true but they also announced that hey uh hello everyone there’s something else you can get on this campaign and it’s so much that people are forgetting that you can still get just the Lord of the Rings the confination and they’re going full into how dare you make and sell this product which I do think I guess the bias thing isn’t relevant if I am defending them so so I guess there’s that uh but I am I am sort of defending them with the acknowledgement that this is not a product for everyone basically they revealed this very very cool deluxe fight table this is a table a centerpiece table that is designed for Lord of the Rings the competition i believe they said there’s a cover for it so you can use it as other stuff i think I’m not entirely sure uh but basically uh this table over here or the heavy duty table lid protects the 3D terrain converting it to a regular table surface that’s the line I saw that it’s not 100% clear if it’s protecting it or if it’s a table surface cuz that would obviously have to be higher it might turn into a regular table you’re probably not buying it for that reason but this is a deluxified giant table that is designed to play Lord of the Rings the competition as a collector’s piece with the price tag of $3,000 with free shipping with free shipping and stretch included so so those are nice things but $3,000 the push back on the comments are a lot but from jokes to memes the occasional personal understanding but a lot of people who are just like “This is not something most people are buying.” And you are correct this is not something most people are buying they have what 30,000 followers on the page they said there’s a maximum of 1,000 of these that are being made and I don’t even know if they’ll sell all thousand of them i just don’t $3,000 is a lot of money for a luxury item i will say this is clearly not targeting your Lord of the Ring confrontation fan nor is it targeting your average board gamer it is targeting people who have a lot of money who are happy to spend lots of money on things Lord of the Rings related that’s what I think the target audience is and that target audience by the way you can bet there’s at least a thousand of those people out there whether or not those thousand find this that I don’t know but there are definitely a thousand people out there in the greater ecosystem of the universe who like Lord Lord of the Rings enough that they will buy collector’s pieces of a cool fun game you can play a half an hour because I saw I saw a lot of comments saying like hey this isn’t even like Lord of the Rings the War of the Ring or something where it’s at least something that’s really awesome this is like a half hour slightly lighter game it’s not a light game but slightly lighter and to that I think that makes sense i think the target audience here are your average Lord of the Rings fan and something that you can play like this is going to be a lot more easy to table uh especially with the actual table than a giant War of the Ring either way don’t get me wrong if you’re like “Holy hell this is not for me.” I am right there with you but also it is for somebody we’re going to find out exactly how many it’s for well not exactly if they sell a thousand if they sell out of all a thousand of them then we won’t find out exactly how many it’s for because they could have sold more but we’ll see what happens there anyways moving on over here we have the game makers uh Bezier Games announced the game makers uh which they’re basically making a game about board games this is an association with a lot of games like every game you see here on the cover and there are a lot of them uh they’re all people that they reached out to those companies and got their permission this is very much a hobbyist game like this is speaking of target audiences this is like almost the exact opposite of the last one this is targeting the board game industry as much as you possibly can with a game about making actual board games so yes Foundations of Rome will be included oswil Santorini and Orlon and Arnack these are all games you can actually make uh in Bezier Games the game makers so I thought that was a fun little upcoming game we also have Star Trek Captain’s Chair this is an expansion to Star Trek Well Star Trek Captain’s Chair to Boldly Go an expansion to the name to the game of the affforementioned name which I actually pulled out recently to table and play finally and didn’t do so cuz I I I have to pick and choose what gets tabled every single day but I am excited to play this one or to play the original but this is a new one coming up because the original was well enough received what is the rating on the original star Trek Captain Sher no no star i did this wrong an expansion or is it standalone star Trek Captain Cheer where are we there we go 8.7 that’s a pretty solid rating honestly that’s a pretty solid rating uh anyways from there we have uh we have exclusive board game manufacturing giant Panda who was also just on the Game Makers a second ago if you saw that there in the corner that’s Panda down in the corner i don’t know why I pointed this if you can see that uh but we have board game manufacturer China board game manufacturing giant Panda expands production outside of China for the first time no this is not bringing jobs to the US i believe they are doing it in Brazil if I’m not mistaken you can check out this board game wire article but they’re basically expanding to joint venture in Brazil as unpredictability over US tariffs continues to weigh in on the tabletop industry so it is true tariffs have brought jobs somewhere South America that basically that basically counts as America right they they they have the tariffs have brought jobs back to America that should be the headline that should not be the headline of this video that should not be the headline of this video can you imagine that if I put the title of this video like you know news and weekend review tariffs bring board game jobs back to America and the punch line is that it’s South America i’m not going to do that but I so want to i want to i want to i want to but I’m not i have self-control i do have self-control i’m not going to do it but it is funny i guess I guess I was wrong jobs have been brought back to America i’m sorry i can’t get That wasn’t planned that wasn’t planned i realized that as I was saying this that that is a spin I could do on the language here which I just find very very amusing but with that we’re going to go ahead speaking of Terrace we’re going to move into our creative spotlight and today’s creative spotlight isn’t a publisher isn’t a designer isn’t an artist isn’t a content creator rather it’s Gamma the game manufacturers association if you are a member if you’re not familiar with what Gamma is Gamma is the game manufacturer association they are basically the collection of all the things in the industry they’re an in they’re an organization that is basically designed to connect the industry together with a central like point so to speak uh they also run Origins they also run Gamma Trade Show which is more Gamma Trade Show is more like industry related origins you’re probably familiar with it’s one of those like you know kind of like packs unplugged just a general exhibition uh exhibitors uh board game convention but they basically have been over the past few days they’ve been doing these uh advocacy week in uh US in in Washington they have basically sent a bunch of people over to Washington to meet with various senators and whatnot to try to advocate on behalf of the board game community i tend to be a pessimist in these things i tend to be like “Oh one voice is never going to make a difference.” I I very much am that kind of personality but that said sometimes voices do make a difference and the fact is that they’re going here they are going as a group to meet with various senators to congress people and all that stuff in order to advocate on behalf of the board game industry that they should be exempt from tariffs these kinds of initiatives whether it’s Jamie Stegmire’s lawsuit not his lawsuit but the lawsuit that he is joining I should be specific whether it’s a lawsuit that they’re joining over there whether it’s these kinds of initiatives whether it’s just making your voice heard one way or another whether as a content creator as an individual change does change is hard change is complicated and sometimes it can feel very hard to to come together and to rise up so to speak against people who seem to have all the power and you have none but a lot of small voices do make a difference a single vote has never swayed a single election but multiple votes together absolutely have you can find many elections where it’s come down to 17 votes here or 28 votes there one vote absolutely not but if you stop being a part of the one vote then you can’t be a part of the 18 or the 25 or the 3,000 or the 300,000 your voice does matter in volume in concentration with others and if you if you defeat if you give up that power that knowledge that you could be a part of something bigger then you can’t make a difference and so uh props to Gamma for being what they for the organization that they are in general and specifically for their advocacy week this week on behalf of the board game industry cuz regardless of your political affiliations like even even the not even I shouldn’t say that no there’s a lot of different people who are supportive of tariffs i I know my audience has a lot of different people in it we all have diverse viewpoints i think diverse viewpoints are definitely a good thing it’s complicated sometimes when you don’t share someone’s viewpoint but you also respect that that other people don’t share yours and how to balance all of that it is complicated and I I appreciate anyone who’s here if you agree with me I appreciate you being here and if you disagree with me I almost appreciate that more because that means that you can look at the things I say you can say “Hey I don’t always agree with that guy but I like his stuff enough that even when I don’t agree with him here I’m still going to watch all this stuff cuz I think he’s a reasonable enough guy or he just has board game taste that line with mine.” Whatever whatever it is I appreciate those people but I do think that within the category of people who are for the tariffs I think there’s two kind of general lines there’s China’s bad in general like that kind of concept like China bad slave labor stealing copyright all those things and then there’s also the well this is just about you know the US and bringing jobs back to the US and financial stability and independence and all those different kinds of things and there’s two different camps but when you within those camps the the trying to protect the board game industry separate from the larger tariff conversation will at least at least align with the values of one of those camps if that makes sense there’s still the camp of China bad period full stop but yeah it’s complicated but I appreciate what Gamma is doing uh in general anyways with that we’re gonna go ahead and dive into our news and weekend review uh to dive into the rest of this basically the weekend review part starting off with the videos of this past week videos of this past week we had a bunch as we usually do on Sunday we had games leaving the collection a bunch of games leaving the collection the one that hit the most what was the one that hit the most oh my gosh I’m blanking on it oh my gosh I am forgetting the game that I was most bothered by which I guess I wasn’t that bothered by i I probably was bothered by I have to I have to watch the video there were a bunch that I wasn’t thrilled with there was the the Roller Right series i forgot all the games i forgot them all they’re on a stack on the stairs over there that’s out of view so there were games leaving the collection a bunch passing through and a bunch that I am sad that they are going away even if I can’t remember what Oh oh oh um Kinghill kingill I was very sad by that’s the one I was very sad by i mean a bunch too but nonetheless games do have to go and it is what it is then on Monday we had two back or not to back part one we had a part two on Wednesday covering all the various Kickstarter games like Sha Inish Wild Gardens and more on Tuesday we had a weekly game show uh specifically the weekly live was pivoted to Tuesday in order to do a game show uh of which Jenna from the board game garden and Chris from Room and Board both joined uh Chris swept the floor which I apologize if I ruined that for you chris swept the floor but it’s definitely worth watching if you are entertained by board game shows or if you even just want to see how good you can be at the board game show then on Wednesday there was a weekly uh the Wednesday there was a two back and not back specifically for game found this time highlights being Nexus a Gricola Dawn of Madness or Dawn of Madness yeah Dawn of Madness uh all those games the game found side of things on two back and not back i don’t usually split them up this week I did i will probably do so in the future uh whenever it’s very a very busy week I kind of liked doing that it was helpful to my own schedule to not have to go through so many campaigns at once uh I might do that in the future uh then outside of that we had on Friday we had Zombicide being sold as a full dedicated news piece video as far as the games I covered this past week we had a bunch we had Kingsburg a review for that went up uh last Saturday kingsburg one of my first games in the hobby i have played through the first edition and the third edition i think I skipped the second edition uh but honestly I think it’s a game that uh was more appealing to me back in the day and has not stood the test of time quite as well i I still think it’s good but not great the way I once did then there’s Coexist a review for Coexist from Mato i thought there was a very solid game with a very tight uh action economy in the game and some vibrant artwork i gave it a 3.5 out of five then on Tuesday we had a review for Wear Tigers i gave that a 3.5 out of five as well it is a fun fast-paced game of basically rolling you’re trying to you’re trying okay you’re trying to basically build up your tableau in this tower defense game against these were tigers that are attacking the village but you are gathering various villages assigning various dice to various things and trying to basically uh defeat the enemies while managing everything on board it’s a generally fun fast-paced game my biggest concern was lack of variability then we had a later on Tuesday we had a review or a series of reviews five five small box games for Pack the Essentials Imposter Syndrome uh Captain Peeps Legacy or whatever it is legacy game Flip 7 and Bamboo Rally Cup uh Flip 7 is delightful highly recommend that it’s been generally just very popular uh very light but surprisingly addictive bamboo Rally Cup is a surprisingly fun racing game that I’ve really enjoyed playing with my kids definitely family focused captain Peep was a complete miss for me unfortunately it’s a legacy game that just didn’t pull in myself or my kids it’s kids focused it’s another Howa game imposter Syndrome my kids love and I do not and then Pack the Essentials is just charming fun uh my daughter really likes this one it’s a fun polyomino game i’m happy to play it but I don’t know if it shines for me in the polyomino game genre but I’m it’s one that I’m definitely happy to play uh then on Thursday or Thursday yes Thursday we had a review for Astralis from Cosmos i enjoyed it i gave it a 3.5 out of five it’s fun it’s not going to stick around but it’s a fun enjoyable game system there’s also a review from MindSpace from Allplay i gave that a four to five i really like it speaking of Polyomic games that I enjoy that’s fast it’s small easy to teach easy to play another all space win for me i’ve had them in my collection for like 6 months if not more by now i just haven’t gotten around to reviewing it until now and then we had a review for Ovation ovation’s fun i I I was okay with aspects of it felt a little too tight in different areas it’s a game I wanted to like a lot more but unfortunately was a bit more of a miss for me then that’s that that’s that’s the games we covered this past week which brings us to today today we’re going to have going up on the channel reviews for For the Emperor Slambo and Ferry those are three small those are three tiny box allplay games going up in one video and then also a review for my island i did not finish my island i’ve played like 16 of the 24 games and I will talk about it in my review you can check that out later today next week we’ll have a bunch of things going up i will have a board game arena solo games like my top 10 solo games on board game arena it’s a slightly messy video so apologies in advance i kind of try to balance teaching and then playing around or two but I think I think I think the intent was good the actual execution is still going to give you a list of 10 games but you might want to jump around a bit uh depending on depending on what you get out of the video you might want to jump around a bit i I am curious i’m curious if it the intent was to kind of showcase the gameplay in a way that might hook you but I think it came across as like a top 10 list with larger interruptions so I am curious i’m curious how you receive it but at the very least you’ll get 10 timestamps of games I think are great to play solo on Board Game Arena and then outside of that you also should have a Origins day one preview maybe i always say maybe to these because it often depends on if I can actually get enough coverage and and content of the haul uh when I am covering uh Origins usually I can with Origins epic Convention is a little bit different but usually I know Origins well enough and I can usually get the content there easily enough that I’ll say there’s a strong chance that I can do so but we’ll see that’ll probably go up Thursday or Friday if I am able to do it friday is usually the day it goes up because we’ll see we’ll see there might be be that going up this week and that brings us to the games on the table these as usual are the games I hope to be playing this week some of them I already know i am uh Realm of Reckoning i will be playing this in the next before the next weekend review i will be playing this i I I just played it again this past week for the second time i’ll be playing it a third time shortly cuz I played at UKG with Ivy Games Ivy Studio Directly and then I played it uh independently over here and I’ll be playing it again this coming week we have Ember Leaf which just showed up this is one that I’m probably less certain I’ll be playing but I hope to be diving into the rules and seeing if I have time for again it’s going to be a busy week with Origins we have Asterisks and Obls over here asterx and Co the card game i have low hopes for this one because I never know how something like this is going to like I guess I let my expectations go down just so that I’m not disappointed but it’s from Monaco it’s a card game with Asterisks and Co i love Asterisks as a series so I’m excited to play this one and um I don’t know i I doesn’t need to be a great game for me to be happy with it it just needs to be a good enough game and then we have Champions of Rokagon which I’m realizing says prototype box on the side champions of Rokugan from Monolith which the entire time has just said prototype over here but I will be playing this one as well these two are definite they’re definitely happening uh but these two are kind of more in the maybe this one I’d say is likely but we shall see in any case until next time I’m Alex Radical from Board Gameco i hope you enjoyed this video and as always I hope you have a good