Welcome to the
What Board Game Collective
Kid Splaining
What Board Game is a collective. A forum to share and showcase the great work you all do.
Kid Splaining have amazing content shot with kids, but for adults. I would love to share their work with you, so I will link to their YouTube videos here.
"Jarred and Peyton (and sometimes mom and dad) explain how to play our favorite family board games. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram @Kid.Splaining, and twitter @Kid_Splaining for more great boardgame content!"
Welcome to the
What Board Game Collective
Being Friends
What Board Game is a collective. A forum to share and showcase the great work you all do.
I love what Being Friends do. Their videos are fun to watch and teach you a lot about games from different categories. They do a lot of Instagram shouts outs in their videos too, so why not follow their feeand join in the fun.
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"Friendship is one of the most important aspects of life. For us, it all started with playing games together! We want to share our love for games and our love for cultivating friendship."
The New What Board Game YouTube Channel
Hey! Your YouTube Chanel is amazing! How did that come about, give me your origin story?
First of all, thanks so much! Well, I have to start by explaining, Being Friends isn’t just me, Evan! Everything you see on our Instagram page is me, but Being Friends is me, my brother, Alex, and two of our best friends, Jacob and Nathan. It all started with Alex struggling with how much time working a Full-time job left very little time for him while being newly married and still wanting to make time for his friendships! He knew there had to be another way to make a living. YouTube came up as an option, and we’ve had YouTube channels in the past, just for fun! Very quickly we knew that the topic for our channel had to be Games.
All of us grew up playing Board Games and Video Games, and it was the foundation of all of our friendships. This was something we all were passionate about and we were so excited to share that passion with the world! Through many conversations, we landed on the simple idea that the reason we loved games so much was because of the way they cultivated friendship so well! Having mutual passions and sharing experiences with each other is such a beautiful way to connect with each other. Simply put, to us, our love for games is all about one thing; Being Friends.
What an awesome basis to start a project like this. How did you get into gaming?
For Alex and I, both Board Games and Video Games were a huge part of our childhood! We grew up LOVING Nintendo and playing video games like Kirby Superstar together was such a special memory! And my favourite memories were late nights with our uncles and aunts playing board games! There was always an outrageous amount of laughter and just so many fun times. It wasn’t until closer to late high school and after graduating that we really dove headfirst into the world of Tabletop. Ever since then I’ve grown my collection to over 100 games, and counting, and I continue to fall in love with the hobby!
Sounds very familiar! What are your plans for the Channel?
We envision Being Friends to one day become a career for us! That way we can give our full attention to the channel, the industry, and the hobby! We want to spread the joy and the incredible experiences that games bring to everyone we can! On top of that, we are all passionate about designing games! While we haven’t yet finished a game, we have many game design projects in progress and dream of one day publishing our games! Game design is one of our favourite things ever. Thinking about the potential of publishing a game in the future, I realised that if I can build a community of gamers around me who trust me, then when the day comes that I am ready to publish something, it’d be incredibly helpful to have eyes on it right away so it’d be less of a shot in the dark! We have many other visions and dreams for ways we can serve the community, services we could provide, and other content streams we could explore! Who knows how long from now that’ll be! Although I can say that we are currently looking into what live streaming could look like! So, keep an eye out for that!
Awesome! I can’t wait! If you could have games night with any designer, who would it be and why?
There are SO many I’d love to talk to, and hopefully, one day will be able to! The one that comes to mind the most prominently is Jamey Stegmaier. While I am a huge fan of all his designs, the biggest reason why it’d have to be him is his unique perspective on the industry! He’s simultaneously a player, designer, publisher, and content creator, so his insights would be invaluable to us, since these are all things we dream of being one day!
Yeah, he would be on my list for sure! What games are you most excited to play that are coming out over the coming months?
Spirit Island’s new expansion, Jagged Earth, should be shipping within the next few months and man, I am incredibly stoked. Right now, Spirit Island has potential to become my favourite game of all time, and honestly, I expect this new expansion is going to be what pushes it to the top! There aren’t a ton of games being released this year that I’m going to get for a while though because most of the games I end up buying aren’t super new! I’m kind of perpetually catching up on all the new games!
But the other games on the way through Kickstarter are Oath, Aeon’s End: Outcasts(another expansion), Railroad Ink Challenge Collector’s Edition(sort of an expansion), and The Root RPG! Also, we need Pandemic Season 0... We need to finish Season 2 first though..
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Welcome to the
What Board Game Collective
Pads & Pawns
What Board Game is a collective. A forum to share and showcase the great work you all do.
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"Quickish videos on all sorts of board games! We are always happy to try new things so if you have any requests let us know!"
We recently sat down and chatted with Nick to find a bit more about his background in the games industry. (This interview contains affiliate links).
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So, I've been playing modern board games for around six years. Like most things I enjoy I jumped in with both feet and started a YouTube review channel as a creative outlet. Through this I got involved with the Facebook group Board Game Exposure in its early days. This made me aware of the, then, fledgling Zatu blog and I applied to be a writer. From there it's been a bit of a blur with me setting up freelance and working with a few companies. I've done social media, Kickstarter advice, rulebooks, articles and videos and now Zatu are my main client and I get to do a wide range of stuff within the industry. We were also able to monetise Board Game Exposure by offering marketing using the knowledge we gained of Kickstarter.
Awesome, what first got you into the hobby as a player?
When I was a kid, we used to play family board games - trivial pursuit, pictionary and alike. But we also had a love of Dingbats and made shows like catchphrase into games. Then I got my first console and moved into video games for a long time. Then one day my brother visited and had Fluxx and Dixit with him. I was hooked! I found King of Tokyo in a local Waterstones and sold a video game to buy it. I haven't looked back since then, despite that first copy having a faulty component!
You were recently described as the Zatu Daddy! Tell us how you got involved with the site and your role there.
I help Zatu in the areas where my knowledge and experience can be put to good use. Recently this has been taking on more responsibilities with the blogging team. This includes editing, which makes me relieved I don't write as much now because it's much easier to edit other people's writing than your own! I also get heavily involved in the conventions and expos Zatu attends which is a lot of fun. I'm really proud of our weekly live show too and are always looking for ways to improve it. We want to provide some board game entertainment and it's surprisingly challenging when you are limited by the webcam!
The live show is great! Tell us about your own channels to, how they started and what people can find there.
I run Board, Deck & Dice across Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. All my non Zatu content goes here although I had to make the decision not to take on as many Kickstarter previews due to time and the fact I get paid to market some of them. That occurs on the Facebook group Board Game Exposure. It's like any board game group with perhaps more of an emphasis on sharing projects. Although we have an 80% engagement rate and that's the most important thing to us.
I can see why, it’s a brilliant group. What are your top five games right now?
Right now is a good limiter! I'd have to say right now it's
1 - Carpe Diem. Love this game and there is an excellent version on yucaipa.de
2 - Metro X does some interesting things with efficiency and luck and can be played over Skype.
3 - Nova Luna - bit of a jump on the bandwagon but I was super suspicious going in. However, it's a really solid puzzle/race. Again, efficiency is a big factor. Also, there's a version on Tabletop Simulator so I've been able to play more than other games. Plus, my non gamer wife enjoys it!
4 - Flip Over Frog - this is a real treat in a small box. Excellent game and one my son loves.
5 - Shobu - a modern two player abstract that is rules light but plays like a dream!
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You mention Tabletop there, online gaming has become a bit of a thing recently. What are your thoughts on this?
I had a bit of a head start as my friend works from home too so we will often have a yucata or Board Game Arena game on the go in the background. As a gamer myself if I play a new game in a virtual setting and enjoy it I'm going to want a physical copy! I think most of us are like this. I do prefer the solutions that 'enforce the rules' for you. But Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator allow so many more games to be played and when people know what they are doing it can be as quick as real life. They are of course flourishing now, but I hope people continue to use them. We have started a Zatu bloggers virtual game night and I want that to continue as practically we'd only meet at conventions otherwise. So, while it doesn't replace the real thing for me, and likely never will, I think it's a great option to have and the options let you engage at a level you are comfortable with.
I agree! What do you see in the future? What’s next for you?
I'm happy at Zatu and having been privy to some of their dreams I'd love to see them happen and be involved in them. I have designed a couple of prototypes which I'd like to polish a bit. I think reviewing and previewing games has made me a better developer than designer though and I'd love to explore that more. I'm very honest in my feedback but also provide what I consider 'fixes' for anything that bugs me. Often these end up in the final game, so it seems like common sense. I also enjoy improving rulebooks. I've had my name in a few now and it's a real buzz. I'd much prefer to be a developer and/or rulebook editor than get a million subs on YouTube to be honest!
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Exciting! Which game designer would you most like to have round for games night and why?
That's an easy one for me - Fabian Zimmerman designer of Tiefe Taschen which was later released as GoodCritters. It's such a good design and very interactive. Fabian became aware of my positive reviews and actually came and introduced himself at Essen 2019. I was blown away! I'd love to sit down and play games with him and learn more about how he made this game which, in my opinion, should be in everyone’s collection.
A close second is the Final Frontier team of designers, but I already got to have plenty of games and meals with them as they took me too Essen - I highly recommend volunteering for them if you get a chance!
It was great talking with Nick, you an see more of his work in the links I will post here. Or why not stop by his channel now and click the subscribe button.