Mechs vs. Minions: Why Would Riot Make a Board Game?

[Music] hi my name is Chris kantrell I work in production over at riot games which is a video game company down in Los Angeles primarily known for making this game League of Legends uh I actually haven't worked on league in a few years instead I've been working on this Mex first minions and Mex first minions in League are similar and that they're both games they're both from the same world as far as our our lore and IP is concerned but the primary difference is that while League of Legends is a video game Mex first minions was designed for your tabletop and I think initially this decision for for Riot to make a a board game probably blindsided some people to be frank I think it probably blindsided some people internally at Riot and why would a a video game company known more for this decide to make this I guess that's what I want to talk to you about today to go over the story of of of next first minions development from my perspective I was the product owner and

a part of the design team and so I'd like to go over the threeyear timeline that I went on to get this game made I'd like to talk about how we how we leveraged our our our video game development experience and and and and talk about some of the design Crossroads we encountered and what motivated us as we kind of CH uh came to choose one path of the next and finally at the end I i' I'd like to spend a little bit of time talking about the why you know why did we make this game why was it you know so important to us uh and to be honest if if this talk feels a little bit light on uh complex Game Theory and heavier on on the motivations behind the experiential design of Mex first minions that's probably because that's where I found our learnings to be the most noteworthy or or compelling and and it's such an honor to be here uh I I I I'll be honest I'm really proud to tell this story it's the story of a video game company trying to learn how to make a board game and that story

starts with this man Stone Le Brandy so some of you might recognize Stone he's taught uh game design classes here at GDC for over a decade but in addition to being a very prolific video game designer Stone also as like a hobby designs board games for his family like every year year over year he he'd sit down and he' create a new board game and he'd show it to his family and they would all play it at Christmas or whatnot and and it's exciting to me that the story starts with stone because in a bit I hope to explain why Riot decided to make a board game and honestly I'm I'm not sure if that answer is going to make any sense unless I can really convey to you what it was that was motivating Stone when he would make these games for his family so over the years he made a lot of these games and one of them the the one that Mex first minions is based on was called wzd for weapons of zombie destruction now wzd was a competitive programming game where you would take these little cards and put them on a command line and that would cause this little robot to to walk around and kill this this room full of zombies and that

was basically it there were like 100 zombies on the board had set up and whoever killed the most won well fast forward to about three years ago Stone was looking to join Riot and he was talking to someone that he'd worked with at a previous studio and they're like hey Stone do you remember that wzd game Stone was like yeah he's like we should have Riot make that and stone laughed at him I mean his eyes it was absurd that that a video game company might might actually want to make a board game and he told him that and the guy was like no I'm serious I really think this is something that Riot could get behind and so Stone was like look I I'd be happy to give you the design and I'll I'll even help out and consult on it if you want but if you're bringing me into work at Riot i' I'd rather the role that I'm being brought on for be you know focused on making video games I'm sure he was worried about the little things in life like job security and uh if we're being completely honest I'm sure on some level he he he wondered what poor fool they would find to drive on the development of this project they would probably never see the light of day and so that's about the time that I enter the story uh

just just some backstory on me I I joined Riot about two years earlier so about five years ago today as a gameplay analyst it was my first job in games uh and a gameplay analyst is just a fancy way of saying that I played the latest balance changes and and in Champions on league and then gave my feedback on them to the designers uh eventually I got promoted to be an associate QA analyst on on the champion team and then I moved over to the release team which is the team at Riot that gets our patches out to our players uh as a release manager and then my wife and I we we had our first child who we named Avalon so don ESD if you're watching this if you name your next child next first minions my wife says she'll consider a square uh and and then I came back from paternity leave and I joined this area of Riot that kind of focused on U unconventional ways to explore our IP as an associate producer and so here I am some some guy who'd never been a

producer before who never even had any direct reports and I just got offered to create my own game at Riot and I was stoked I mean it didn't matter to me that it was a a board game instead of a video game it didn't matter to me that I I was terrified beyond belief or felt completely underqualified I was just like yeah I'm making a game you know I was I was living the dream look I don't want to belabor my inadequacies here because you know I do know the space I love board games I love the mark they leave on us as people I love the way they they they impact our relationships and and help shape our culture you know some of my earliest memories are are are sitting down to to play chess with my dad or or Stratego or risk or or accent allies I I I love that board games provide a venue for for families to create those types of memories or or an outlet for friends who are you know looking to hang out um so I guess you could say while

I'd never been a producer before what what I lacked in experience I tried my best to make up for in enthusiasm or passion and I remember I I I sat down to play wzd for the first time and it just didn't click for me I mean I I liked it I loved parts of it I I just you know I wasn't all that eager to keep playing it again and again and and here's the thing I I could look around the table and just see in the eyes of the other folks that everyone else it just clicked they got it you know so I I knew there was something awesome there I I just didn't think I could I could see it yet and I thought I was embarrassed you know I thought I was a fraud and so what I what I tried to do was I tried to look just as objectively as I knew how at this game uh because there were things that I liked about it like it had a lot of the same elements that I loved about Richard Garfield's Masterpiece Robo rally but it also had some things that kind of separated it some separated itself from Robo rally that I really appreciated like goes a

bit more hack and slash feel as opposed to a race you know stone stone managed to kind of capture this this viseral feeling of killing all of these zombies like like that moment in Dead Rising where you're kind of wandering through like a a parking grage just killing zombies to something viscerally right brain to offset the more analytical nature that comes with programming out your command line so you get a little bit of the of of both types of Gamers there with with with that approach and in game design we like to talk about this thing called Power growth fantasy which which is when you go on this journey from starting weak to Growing to be you know very powerful which is just like it sounds I guess power growth fantasy and and stone had managed to incorporate elements of that by leaving the cards that you would you would place to program your Mech to kind of grow as as the game progress instead of wiping them at the end of the round so you could feel your your your little robot grow into this powerful zombie killing machine but still like even with all of that from like a timeline perspective I went from about here to here like months of time just sort of going through the

motions you know being more excited with the idea that I got to make a game than actually being excited with with where that game was at and eventually I kind of brought this to to my manager a guy who who also happens to be my mentor and and I told them that that that I was making a game that I wasn't really excited to play and I was pretty sure that when I told him this uh well I didn't think I'd be fired I was pretty he'd be forced to kind of take me off the project and instead what he what he told me was that it didn't matter if it clicked for anyone else or not that I shouldn't be the product owner for a game that that didn't click for me and he encouraged me to go back to Stone and kind of talk through the portions of the game that I I wanted to workshop and what I did Stone was completely ready to collaborate was even excited to like watch his design evolve and I bring this story up because I ultimately learned something that proved to be very valuable to me that I hope I have the courage to remember throughout the rest of my career and that's that you and everyone else on your team will do your best work

if you if you really believe in what you're making you know there's a a craftsmanship an artisanship that that comes with passion that's just impossible to fake or at the very least I found that that I am unable to fake it and so kind of newly invigorated I I I went and I I I started working on the game in Earnest and and for the large part it was by myself I mean I'd go and I'd rope in a a group of random play testers and and I'd play with them and I take their feedback and I kind of make some changes and and theyd go on their way and then i' I'd go and I'd rope up another group of play tester and i' kind of do the same thing just rinse and repeat you know and this was very beneficial because in game design you you have to do frequent play tests that's the that's the the meat in the bones of of game design everything else is just kind of theory crafting right uh and and I'm I'm very fortunate that at Riot we have a lot of you know hardcore board game players that I I I could pull from but I ultimately look back on on this era of the development and I I see

it as one of my biggest mistakes see the thing is um you know just by nature of them all being different people each each play tester had a had a different idea of what the eventual game might look like you know so I I talk to this group and they'd be like oh yeah I think the game wants to be here and I work towards that and then then I'd work towards this and I'd work towards this and this and and and I ended up with a very scattered design and I didn't recognize it at the time you know I it wasn't until later in the process that I had a a core group play testers that that I could see the difference and I I'll get to that in a bit but for now just know that eventually every design is going to have to withstand the the the scrutiny of of public opinion uh but initially when you first start working on it it's actually very healthy to have a a very core group of play testers that you trust until you understand what the game wants to be so by around February 2015 I I had felt that I I I brought the game to about as far as I'd be able to take it

and I was ready to move into production and my stakeholders they were ready for the project to be over and so I told them that the that the design was about locked right but I still have my doubts and what if it wasn't any good right and so not knowing anyone in the board game industry I decided to turn to the two people that I turned to as a player when it's time for me to purchase a game I I talked to Tom vassel of Dice Tower and Quinton Smith of shut up and sit down and I reached out to them and I asked them if they'd be interested in coming and and and play testing it and telling me if I was going to embarrass myself or not and I think both of them were a little bit taken aback I mean Tom had had never heard of Riot or or leak of Legends and Quinton was even pretty adamant that we didn't really need him what we needed to do was find a designer and I told him pretty candidly that I'd already had a lot of designers come and play Tesla game I I just didn't know if players would like it and so he agreed to come take a look but Tom came out first and and I I remember we were so nervous uh he he he he gave us a lot of really insightful

things to do around the game to kind of make it feel more streamlined like a first player marker and and how to make the turns go quicker and the like and after a long day of play test he guy he was like guys I don't know why you're so nervous you know I I play a lot of prototypes this one's actually pretty far along I think you have a game on your hands we're like really I was like yeah so we were like okay well thank you very much Mr vassel and and he went on his way and we were stoked like we were strutting around you know doing high fives and I remember someone even asked like do we do we still want Quinton to come out and and play it you know now that we have Tom bassel's approval and I was like well yeah CU I I'd never been you know more confident in the game or or and you know his his flights were already booked and I I I really wanted to meet him I'm a fan of his work so Clinton came out and played it a couple weeks later and and and and he was less enthusiastic I mean he said he liked it but he he wasn't sure why why he would get it to the table again when it compared to everything else in his

collection which you know wasn't what we wanted to hear he started talking about you know about M Mystics and and descent and Imperial assault and and and a campaign where you would kind of take this this this core uh where the game could evolve and with scenarios where you would take the core programming thing like stones thing and build something on top of it with missions and Hazards and and a narrative and you could just tell that as he was describing it you could look around the room and and see in the eyes of everyone that like the game he was describing was just so much better than the game we had made and and in that moment with everyone else listening wistfully to that beautiful British accent you know the full situation kind of dawned on me you know to to make the game the way that Quinton was describing I would basically have to design 10 games instead of one that's a lot more games remember my stakeholders they think I'm almost finished so I I went back to my to my to my mentor and and I kind of told him

what I'd learned and what I wanted to do and what I what I was afraid to do and and I was like look if you believe in it then then make your case to your stakeholders I was like well look I it's already been a year and a half if I if I go to the CEO and I tell them I want to reboot the design he'll probably just cancel the project and he was like possibly well maybe even probably but you know Chris what's the alternative do you really want to make a game that you yourself don't believe in so I updated my LinkedIn profile and I I I went back to my stakeholders and and and and I told him I wanted to reboot the design you know that I I wanted to do missions and a campaign and and 10 10 different missions and and and a story that would kind of evolve and and I just kind of laid out my vision for the pro for the project just kind of as articulately as I knew how just pretty confident that they were just going to cancel the project and well they didn't you

know and I guess in retrospect I suspect they saw something in me that maybe I wasn't looking for at the time see I I look in the mirror and I see my failures you know but they they look past my my lack of experience and saw someone that that that really thought that this was the best way that we we could go forward that this you know was how we could best provide value to our players so they took a look at my prototype pieces and my prototype art for my Prototype game and and and we're like okay hurry please but okay so I hurried and it was pretty clear to me that if I was going to get this designed in time I needed more design help so I brought in Rick Ernst who ended up becoming the lead designer on MVM and the two of us worked together to kind of create a series of scenarios uh and and and mapped out kind of the Arc of of the story and the campaign and then Rick came up with the idea of of a damage deck and and communal drafting the the command card since we decided to

go fully cooperative and and the two of us just focused on on on these daily iterations this kind of Rapid iteration don't be afraid to fail but do it fast we needed more plate testers so we brought in both Nathan Tyrus and pant saraswat and the four of us became this core play test group and if I could offer one piece of advice to people who are who are in the middle of play testing their own games right now it's to do targeted play tests that's when at the very beginning of a play test you you write down what it is you want to focus on for that play test and it could be anything it could be game length or tension or or a new mechanic that you've introduced but have a very clear Focus for that play test and then at the end of the play test revisit it and and and see what you've learned it sounds like such a subtle shift and it felt like one but what ended up happening coming out of it was that instead of us talking kind of empathetically about like ah this felt bad or this felt bad we started talking much more strategically around the direction of the game and and kind of where it was heading and the gain started kind of driving toward this this

single coherent Vision both Nathan and pant kind of joined us from from a background in QA um and and they brought with them this this like years of practice over over at league on on how to properly play test a game and and it was like night and day compared to the like wandering around in the desert that I did by myself um so just keep that in mind that like eventually you do want to be able to open it up but but you know and I I don't think that that's the only the only example of of Riot kind of leveraging our our our video game making knowhow and applying it to the tabletop space I think another good example of that is that we decided to publish the game ourselves and I'll tell you firsthand that dealing with the nightmare that is Global Logistics is not the easiest way to do it but at this point we're just kind of used to figuring it out as we went and we got some benefits from this approach that I think you see us leveraging in both League of Legends uh and MVM for one it allows us to to talk candidly with our

players a lot of times when a when a designer gives a game to a to a publisher it's the the publisher that controls the messaging of the game so sometimes the the the a designer often times even a really big name designer isn't encouraged to kind of talk candidly about what they've learned in their process or or even answer basic rules questions well Riot being both a a publisher and and a distributor has taken a different approach over the years with league and I was eager to kind of apply those learnings to this new space and to be clear that's not unique to us a lot of the most successful Kickstarter games out there really leverage Community engagement in very inventive and creative ways another benefit that we got from U self-publishing was that we had greater control over the quality that we were going to be able to provide to players you know somewhat prevailing misconception was that that mexus minions was just made at a loss which isn't true we actually make a very similar profit margin I assume as as other board game Publishers but the the difference is we we just took all of the money that is typically allotted to like

distribution and Licensing out an IP and and the retail markup and we poured all of that back in to making higher quality uh game components so we opted to to paint the pieces and and and look for opportunities to kind of push the envelope a few places in that way because at this point we we didn't just want to make a a game we wanted to make an experience you know I remember uh when I first started on the project I I I watched a YouTube video of of Rob davio as he was giving a a a talk right after he launched Risk Legacy and in the talk he talked about that's him in the corner there and in the talk he talked about um how they had done skin conductivity tests on a group of board game players over at MIT and what they found was that board game players are the most excited when they play a board game when they sit down to open the box and then they go to like learn the rules and that's that's like where fun goes to die and to be clear I I I stole that joke

like beat for Beat from from Rob Davio's risk legoy presentation like years ago and and so I thought on that like and I recognize how absurd this sounds but I I I just thought of all the boxes in my life that I really enjoyed opening and and and the Touchstone that I landed on was that moment when you first open up an iPhone you know every piece is kind of thoughtfully engineered in its own specific place and and and for me it it created like this moment of of of ceremony uh and attention to detail because if if Apple cares so much about getting these arguably trivial details perfect then it kind of conveys a sense of of of craftsmanship of artisanship that carries over to the final product long after you've forgotten about the packaging and for me that made even more sense to to get it right on on a board game because in a board game you you keep the packaging you know you you don't throw it out you you have to engage with it each time you you interact with the product and so just standing on the shoulders of giants here I I I leveraged Rob Davio's learnings

and I brought it over to Noah Adelman over at game tray and the two of us came up with this idea to create a series of Trades that would really maximize the the that that that first moment of Engagement it's it's an interesting thing cuz you could really tell that that the team was really starting to see the game take shape like we'd say like like our Mantra you know we'll probably never be able to make a game like this again so let's just make the best game that we can in this moment and we pushed ourselves and and after hours and hours of of play tests and banging our head against the wall and squashing minions we landed with a game that that we were excited to show the rest of the world and then on October 13th 2016 at at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Standard time we we launched the game uh not sure if anyone in the world would care that some video game company had decided to to make a board game completely

inhouse and so that's the story that's the three-year timeline that I went on to get this game made it it amounts to me surrounding myself with far more talented people and I guess it ends with me getting up here to speak to you guys on their behalf it's an odd thing after we Shi the game uh there there were there seemed to be a common sentiment that like oh yeah of course Riot can make a high quality board game they probably had like a billion people working on it um and the truth is that it was really just this handful of people and and each of these people myself included were all fully dedicated to other projects while we were working on it and with the exception of of Chris Matthew over at Panda and Noah a lot of us had had practically no board game development experience between all of us it just to kind of hit on a theme here um what we lacked in experience we try to make up for in in passion uh but I don't feel like I've really answered answer my main question why did Riot decide to make a board game

you know was it was it because we wanted to actualize the potential of an untapped Market in the League of Legends or hobbyist board gain mind space no do do we want to optimize our user AC acquisition and and minimize turn by by leveraging unconventional retention strategems no that wasn't it either uh I think the truth is we just we wanted to make a game that we that we our players would like you know for the same reason that that stone would come home after after a long day of working at the office making games and sit down and create something for his family we wanted to make a game that well that we thought our players might like and I guess for me personally I I wanted to make something that that one day I could play with my daughters I'd like to end with this quote from one of my favorite storytellers it's actually very Sim similar to something I heard Mark and and the founders of Riot talk about when when they first started you know

thinking about the idea of of of Riot and League of Legends and and and talking to various Angel Investors and at the time kind of the the general sentiment was that uh PC games were dead Facebook games those were the future if you want to turn this League of Legends thing into a Facebook game then we'll invest in your company uh like the general sentiment was go broad instead of go deep but Mark and Brandon they they really believed in this market in large part because they were a part of it they were part of the small Niche Warcraft 3 mod community and and they'd landed on a game that excited them and that mattered more you know re reaching this this handful of people in a very passionate way that that mattered more you know these days League of Legends has like a 100 million players every month and and and even a very successful board game might only sell 15,000 units and its entire lifetime so if our real goal was just to reach as many people as we could we probably

would have been a lot better out not making a board game or or if we made a board game just like leveraging our IP to kind of get something that had broader public appeal like uh League of Legends Monopoly uh but going broad was never our goal it was so much more important to us to really resonate in a in a core way with a handful of people than it was to to reach a broader audience and a less impactful way look I I knew that I know that next first minions it's not a game for everybody and I'm okay with that uh but when I when I was making it I I thought of this imaginary person that I hoped would be out there that when they got it they they would be as passionate about it as as we were when we were making it and so I I'd like to I I'd like to end with with this um each of us in this room have only a finite number of projects that we'll ever be able to work on so if you take nothing else from this talk I implore you take

this use your finite time to make something that you are proud of that pushes you that that that you can pour your heart into and swing for the fences and that terrifies you just a little bit pushing you outside your comfort zone look I I I don't know if that will ultimately lead to a game that that that everyone wants to play or not but I do know that that game that's a game that I'd want to play thanks and I think we have about four minutes I'm I'm close to time but uh if you know anyone wants to talk then I I can answer questions now or we can go out and do it in the breakr room all right then oh uh I think I think they want you to talk to him into a microphone or if you say it then I'll just repeat the question I can make that work uh I just had a random question since someone else in their hand your your favorite League of Legends champion what is my favorite League of Legends

champion uh my my favorite League of Legends champion is probably saraka I I I like bananas a lot I do I I played her since beta uh as as a mid and a top like pretty pretty aggressive I played kind of an unconventional way of doing it I'm I'm gonna go with this guy just because he's at the microphone but if if you want to go to the mic then I'll hi uh great talk I'm curious you mentioned that you know you tried pulling in random people for play tests and you felt like you learned less from then than when you had a dedicated group of play testers and to me that's that's really interesting CU it seems to be like backwards from what I know from video games which is like oh yeah you want to bring in new people because they don't have exposure and that they're going to be seeing things for the first time I'm curious what was what did you find that you got from the dedicated play Desk group that you didn't get from brand new people so I I I think over the the trajectory of a of a of a games kind of development life cycle uh you definitely want to get to a point where you want to get it to as many eyes as you can uh so that's that's not untrue but I think uh the point I was trying to

make is that if you if you do that too early in the process you end up creating a lot of different types of games and and and it's not very for me I felt like it wasn't a very cohesive Vision uh and I i' I've seen that elsewhere in Riot we we try to kind of compartmentalize the the R&D efforts uh or whatnot thank you uh hello hello there hi first of all As A League of Legends player I do care so thank you um second of all uh in the league of legend Community I was talking with people as Mex versus minions was announced and it came out sorry I got a cold um one of the prevailing things I saw was there were a bunch of people going oh wow this is so incredible and then other people were going ug yordles um have you and well it comes back to thing it's going to be the game that people want but um have I know you said that if we're we're probably never going to do something like this again have you ever considered doing something like this

again or expanding it or I I know it's you just said no but no uh we're not currently working on any other board games right now I I think you know never say never we're always listening to our players and and you know if there's a sentiment that like there's there's a community for this then I think that's something that Riot tends to listen to their players on uh and as far as the ortles go um it's funny because we when I when I first originally kind of came up with like pairing uh the game one of the things that that I found was that uh we used like Oriana and Blitz crank and some of our more sentient robots uh from league in in in the game uh and it felt very frustrating when like blitzcrank would run into a wall uh whereas like when we when we moved it to yordles it felt silly and Whimsical and it kind of created this moment of laughter as opposed to frustration uh and and and I thought that the yal really kind of helped convey that but hi uh was it always Cooperative um

no did you want to do that that kind of Balan the universe no we we we started with a competitive game and and we switched to to cooperative and in part because um I found that the game could be very spiky when it was competitive like if someone drafted the cards that you really wanted uh or or if they got cards that like really helped make their it was like the cards that were dictating uh success or failure and as soon as we made it collaborative then it was it was kind of a point of tension like oh I really need this oh I need this too that's fine you take it I I'll figure something else out and like kind of created a really neat kind of Cooperative engagement I I personally really like Cooperative games and board games because like in League I I there are like millions of players that are playing it any one time so if I want to get on and I want to play like a game that's kind of balanced we have matchmaking to do that but you know if I sit down with like my my my wife or or if I if I sit down with like you know my my grandparents like there's a wide range of people

where like if you and I were sitting down and playing chess right now and you were like and you just crushed me I'd be like oh well do you want to play again You' be like sure and then you just crush me again and I'd be like oh well do you want to play again you'd be like well not not really and I'd be like yeah me neither and and I I think I think with matchmaking you kind of avoid that uh and in Cooperative games instead of like having a friend who's much more talented than you at the game it actually becomes a benefit as opposed to kind of a detriment and so those were some of the thoughts on on my as a followup did you guys kind of consider this to be a detriment to the league player base cuz they're obviously very competitive and just that alone would like no uh and the reason why is league is a competitive game but league is also a Cooperative game you know like in order to really succeed at League you need to get good at at Teamwork and kind of working with your teammates and that's that's an element of that game too so if we made a competitive game like that's that's an aspect of it but you know so is so is cooperation thank you yeah no no worries um so I almost

had the opposite of that question do you think the relationship with Riot and league has helped sales of the game somewhat and can we assume the fact you're saying you probably never do something like this again mean that it's hasn't taken right by storm or is it just pocket money compared to league so I I I didn't hear the second question I'm sorry um can we assume the fact you um you said you were probably never going to do something like this again right um can we tell that to mean that it hasn't taken Riot by storm and therefore you you just I I I think I think Riot is is very proud of the game uh I think we're just always looking at the next Hill and and trying to find the next thing that kind of pushes us and and that's that's that's more the sentiment right now but you know I I loved working on this project um and you know the idea of making more games in this fashion is very appealing to me so we we'll see we'll see where it lands cool yeah as a a lover of board games that are Cooperative I encounter a lot of issues with kind of alpha gaming and stuff like that that we all kind of know

about what are some things you did to avoid those in your game uh the timer the the timer was a really big actually for the longest time if we knew that we were going to do uh a Cooperative game the one thing the only thing that we had to solve was was quarterbacking it was like a really prominent thing in the in the in the back of all of our minds cuz we we see it as kind of a you know a a problem with the space right now I guess and and I I was really driving on like like I went with like the Hanabi route where you like you can't show stuff and and like we thought of all these really kind of just detrimental ways to kind of uh remove the ability for someone to have quarterbacking in in that agency but what we ended up doing uh and Rick talked me out of this he he was spoton it was like let's just for like a week or two not worry about quarterbacking and look to add more collaboration more opportunities for for for you want to engage with with your teammates and that actually made for a much more fun experience uh so in solving that problem I actually made the game much much worse and and I'm glad

that he came in to kind of write the ship there uh but I do think that the timer and also maybe the complexity of of the individual puzzle for each player kind of makes that difficult to to be to feel like you are the you know the offici andado on every other person's thing because the the the decision space there is pretty rich cool and as the last one with Obby being a great game what are other inspirational games for you Cooperative What U what other favorite cooperative games oh gosh there there's a long list pandemic Legacy I think is is is huge I uh Robinson cruso Hanabi like I I could go on and on like yeah it's such a rich space all right thank you guys very much uh I was blessed [Applause] thanks