Dave: 00:39

Hello and welcome to episode two eighty four of Effekt, the tiredest Matthew has ever been. I'm Dave.

Matthew: 00:51

And I'm Matthew, and I recovered from being tired, but by God, I was tired on Monday.

Dave: 00:59

It wasn't the tiredest I have ever been, but I haven't quite recovered from it yet. I

Matthew: 01:06

was just flaked out. I mean, I got up, you know, but did I do anything? Yeah, I went for a walk, but mostly I just lay on the sofa. I couldn't even concentrate on YouTube, let alone anything else.

Dave: 01:20

I had a I had a I had a similar day on Monday, and I having had a cappuccino, my my one cappuccino of the year at UK Games Expo, I went into town and I got myself a cappuccino because I I fancied it and a sausage roll. I sat in the castle grounds.

Matthew: 01:35

Did you say hold on. Hold on. You just got your second cappuccino of the year. Yes. Your second one.

Dave: 01:41

Exactly. Yeah. But the fates conspired against what I had. I had two sips of it, put it down on the bench next to me, then knocked it over. So That

Matthew: 01:50

is your body rejecting it.

Dave: 01:52

That is no. Well, I think yeah. So that's that's no. What have we got lined up on the show today, Matthew?

Matthew: 01:57

Well, be honest, we haven't actually got very much lined up on the show today. This is, well, this is a change to our schedule. We wouldn't normally be recording today. We wouldn't normally be releasing tomorrow, but we're gonna release this tomorrow because we weren't able to release last weekend because we were at UK Games Expo.

Dave: 02:16

So we

Matthew: 02:16

just thought rather than make people wait until next week for what would by then be really old news, we ought to get together.

Dave: 02:25

And I'm gonna be on holiday next week.

Matthew: 02:27

And now you're gonna be on holiday. Where are you going, Dave?

Dave: 02:30

I'm going to Rhodes.

Matthew: 02:31

Rhodes? Excellent choice. Abroad and stuff.

Dave: 02:36

Pardon?

Matthew: 02:37

Abroad and stuff. Abroad and Unless you mean going to the roads outside your house.

Dave: 02:42

This is amazing. Roads with an h. Yes. Can't wait. It's gonna be, a few days of sitting in the sun banning the the word do is gonna be left at the door.

Matthew: 02:56

You're not gonna do anything.

Dave: 02:57

Nobody's gonna say to me, what do you want to do at any point without me get fucking going off the deep end? Because I'm going to do nothing. Cool. Yeah. So I'd rather be here for

Matthew: 03:08

Are you looking for a lounger? Are looking for a pool?

Dave: 03:12

Good book. Yeah. Mate, my I'm I'm quite into ever since you gave me sent me those books on Audible

Matthew: 03:20

Oh, yes.

Dave: 03:21

I've I've been using Audible quite a lot. I haven't listened to your books yet, actually. I've I've started this into one, and then got distracted with something else. But I am I'm I'm now kinda converted to Audible. Yeah.

Dave: 03:33

Cool. That's pretty that's good. Anyway. Yeah. So

Matthew: 03:39

So, yes, we're not doing an episode next week. So we're gonna go on a two weekly cycle from today. But today we haven't really got much for a program prepared. It was, I think We

Dave: 03:52

never have program prepared. I mean, you know, that's quite a strong word really, isn't it, prepared?

Matthew: 03:58

Yeah. We well, we we very rarely have a program prepared. But sometimes we have prerecorded content, Dave. Come on. Let's be That is

Dave: 04:06

well, that is true. That is true. That is true.

Matthew: 04:08

And this time, it's gonna be just you and me discussing UK Games Expo, dissecting it a bit, dissecting our reaction on not one but two stans, and then saying, See you next time. And you know what? We haven't even prepared what we're going do next time. We hardly ever prepare what we're going do next time, but this is a blank sheet.

Dave: 04:30

Yes, we do. I think we had a couple of things in mind before UK Games Expo that we were talking about on previous

Matthew: 04:36

Yeah, you've got a thing to do for Thomas.

Dave: 04:38

I have no recollection really what they were. Yes. Anyway.

Matthew: 04:44

We'll come back to that. Here's the thing you can do when you're on holiday is actually write an article about something about the icons. We'll look it up. I'm giving that to you to do because the holiday hasn't started yet.

Dave: 04:58

I won't be doing that.

Matthew: 04:59

Go off the deep end about being made to do something.

Dave: 05:03

Not sure about that. It might be your turn. I'm I'm I'm going I'm going through the, I'm doing an editing pass on the, Lone Rider rules, mate.

Matthew: 05:12

No. Right. Yeah. That's what you're doing, is it? Are you done on that yet?

Dave: 05:16

No. No. No. So I'll I'll I'll hopefully finish it today, and then I got a couple of comments around it. So I haven't haven't tried actually playing it, so I'll That's

Matthew: 05:25

the key thing to try and do is to play.

Dave: 05:28

Well, I'm just trying I'm I'm just getting the putting my suggestions on the on the document as a whole to begin with.

Matthew: 05:35

Now this makes actually, a little a little extra segment now. Old West News, Dave. Old West news. I have finished writing the Lone Rider rules, haven't I? Which are our solo rules, and you are currently reviewing them.

Matthew: 05:53

And then at some point, I will lay them out, and then we will give them to all those backers who pledged for them a year and a half ago now, almost two years ago.

Dave: 06:08

Yes. And for us. Yeah.

Matthew: 06:10

We will also put them on drive through for anybody else who wants them.

Dave: 06:15

Yeah. I'm I'm very much liking the, the cover art and the cover that you've done. I think that looks lovely.

Matthew: 06:22

It's not bad, is it?

Dave: 06:23

It's good,

Matthew: 06:24

isn't it? It's not artist. A

Dave: 06:27

We've used her for a

Matthew: 06:28

couple of character portraits as well. But yes, she feels very much in the style of Malin. Yes. So, yeah, we'll look forward to seeing some more out of her. She's away on her on a day for two weeks, so I can't give her another commission yet, but I will when I return on the basis

Dave: 06:48

of That's good. I like that artwork very much.

Matthew: 06:52

So, moving on, world of gaming. Oh, sorry, no. First of all, let's just say we've got no new patrons to thank, but thank you to all of our current patrons.

Dave: 07:08

Absolutely. Current and past. And, just as a kind of little, like, sort of, like, foreshadowing what we're gonna talk about later. It was lovely to see all of those of you that I did get to see at UK Games Expo. That's one of the real joys of conventions for me is getting to see all those people who I otherwise wouldn't actually get to meet in the flesh.

Dave: 07:28

Yes. Those meetings are very short and fleeting because everyone's busy. But, nonetheless, that's the thing I look forward to the most about these things.

Matthew: 07:36

Well, you ought to do what I do and actually work with some of our new patrons in running things, but that's foreshadowing what we're talk about in a bit.

Dave: 07:44

Yeah. Well, you you hog them all, mate.

Matthew: 07:46

I hog them all. I I, yeah, I keep them all to myself.

Dave: 07:49

You hog the last two anyway. But maybe after our discussion in a minute, you might wanna let me have a go next time.

Matthew: 07:56

Yeah. So world of gaming. Only a little bit of news to the world of gaming, and that is I really want to like Outgunned more. Outgunned, made by our friends at Too Little Mice, published by our friends at Free League, should be my perfect replacement for Feng Shui. But for some reason, I don't actually play it or run it.

Matthew: 08:28

We haven't got time. I mean

Dave: 08:29

Have you even tried it at any point?

Matthew: 08:32

Tried it. Yeah. Paul ran an adventure for a group of us patrons. And sort of I'm gonna call it the poker dice mechanic. I don't know what they call it.

Matthew: 08:46

The poker dice mechanic kind of works, and that was of proper outgunned, not outgand adventures, which is a little bit more pulpy. Proper outganders

Dave: 08:57

more job making. Do you mean, like, the artsy dice style?

Matthew: 09:02

Yeah. So, basically, you're rolling a pool of five dice, I think, generally, and you're looking to get pairs or

Dave: 09:08

Pairs or triples.

Matthew: 09:10

Yeah. Or I guess a full house maybe. Yeah. Okay.

Dave: 09:15

So it's looking for more kind of poker style outcomes.

Matthew: 09:20

Well, so, yeah, this is what I haven't entirely got my head around. You know? Right. You can do anything, even impossible things, but to do that, you're going to need to get a bunch of matching numbers.

Dave: 09:36

Right. Yeah.

Matthew: 09:37

So, you know, you kind of say what you want to do, roll the dice, and then say what you actually did. It's a little bit like feng shui in a way. What they've got is, three new adventure books coming out, one of which is called Golden Age. That is more, outgunned adventures in the style of original outgunned adventures. We are talking Saturday morning RKO cinema stuff or obviously your man, Indiana Jones.

Matthew: 10:12

We've also got two other ones branching out though. There's one which is called Jolly Roger, which is pirates. And there's one called Voyage Extraordinaire, is Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle, you know Yeah. Mysterious worlds, lands of the dinosaurs and all that.

Dave: 10:37

Yeah. It's it's a game it's a game that I kind of probably should quite like as well because of those kind of things. I mean, I'm I'm as you know, I'm not really into the pulpy end of kind of gaming, but I did really enjoy the Feng Shui games that you ran and got into the the sense and the feel of those. So I thought that was that was really good. But yeah, it hasn't and and again, you know, I think the dice mechanic appeals.

Dave: 11:03

I quite like the the basic idea of it. But I've I've never had the urge to to to sort of grab it and get it to the table, you know, as a matter of urgency. But it's quite as popular. I mean, you know, we sell quite a lot of it. Just as a slight digression, I was just gonna say, isn't it interesting how two genres that for a long time have kind of been not unpopular but not in vogue, are now very, very much in vogue.

Dave: 11:35

And I'm talking about Wild West and pirates. It's it's funny how these trends go, isn't it? I mean, I don't quite know what causes them to happen, but I I don't know. There'll be somebody out there saying, what about seven seas and and all the rest of it? But, again, it just feels like these are things that they're kind of the this is, like, sound wrong possibly.

Dave: 11:59

Like, the community kind of just, like, gives the cold shoulder a little bit or has given the cold shoulder for quite a long time, but suddenly, everyone's doing it now.

Matthew: 12:09

Yeah. And obviously one of, I think probably my favorite Borg at the moment is Pirate Borg. I know

Dave: 12:17

it It is doesn't a many perks. Have to say it's a gorgeous product.

Matthew: 12:21

Yeah. But also, here's a thing. Is it a cyclical nature of generations growing up? So, for example, you and I, as little kids, were raised on '19 I mean, we're not all children of the sixties, but cowboy serials and cinema made in the sixties was kind of shown on repeat to us

Dave: 12:53

In the seventies and eighties.

Matthew: 12:54

Satays on tellies in the seventies and eighties and was then considered by grown ups at that time as a bit naff and that sort of thing. Were just filling telly hours with it for kids. And then, you know, now we've grown up and what do we really want to play? We want to play something that was kind of instilled into our minds back then. A bit similar with poets.

Matthew: 13:19

And, you know, because we are I mean, let's face it. We got to make Tales of the Old West not just because of the support of all our patrons and our backers, but also because we could afford to spend their time to do it. You remember, you and I have not paid ourselves for an ounce of

Dave: 13:40

six years' worth of work in this regard,

Matthew: 13:45

but we are comfortably enough off. Even when we backed it, we took a risk at saying this is what we'll offer even if we only just back it. We'd only just met our target, Kickstarter couldn't have afforded to produce the books we wanted, but we said we would stump up the money to get the book we wanted

Dave: 14:08

out of that.

Matthew: 14:13

Know, not everybody's in that position. When another generation is in that position of having free cash to invest in the game that they want to see, will it be something that is currently getting the cold shoulder?

Dave: 14:27

Yeah. Quite frankly. Yeah.

Matthew: 14:29

I don't know. I was gonna say Saturday morning cartoons and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle style, but actually, they seem to be doing quite well still. Yeah. I don't know what's getting the cold shoulder currently. No.

Matthew: 14:42

No. I was gonna say that

Dave: 14:44

that that Firelock never got around to finish under the black sail. I've got I've got no idea what happened with that. Yeah. Yeah. They were slightly ahead of the ahead of the trend.

Dave: 14:54

If they'd got that out,

Matthew: 14:56

you

Dave: 14:56

know, even in similar kind of schedule that they got, war stories out, They might have been on the on the crest of the wave for for a new pirate.

Matthew: 15:05

Yeah. And, of course, they do have their pirate skirmish game out in the world of figures. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: 15:17

I don't know. We'll we'll have to get in touch with Al and find out what what what his plans are. I saw him recently on social media, yeah, sitting down to play Rapture Protocol with his gang.

Dave: 15:30

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I saw that.

Matthew: 15:33

So currently, he's thinking about Alien, obviously. And the other thing, of course, is pirates is always a difficult subject, and I don't really think Seven Seas handled it very well. They wanted to be I'm gonna use the word woke here, not in the pejorative sense, but they wanted to be

Dave: 15:58

And more sensitive.

Matthew: 15:59

You know, they wanted to be inclusive, shall we say, effectively not colonialist. And you can't be pirates and not colonialist. Pirates is predicated on colonialism, whether it's the pirates preying on the Spanish who are stealing the gold off the South Americans. That's the reason for piracy. Colonialism is the reason for piracy.

Matthew: 16:32

And the way Morckborg does it is by recognizing that colonialism why am I struggling here with this work? In the dark Caribbean, the British are the bad guys. It's as simple as that. Yes, there is colonialism. And as pirates, you have your bad guys to fight.

Matthew: 16:58

Whereas I think what Seven Seas always wanted to do is have the swashbuckling and the pretty dresses and fabulous feasts and marvellous palaces all across Europe and not worry about where the sugar for those feasts came from, which just doesn't work. That's my particular criticism of the second edition.

Dave: 17:25

I I guess if it it's if you're going again for a very pulpy kind of feel, which is all about Errol Flynn swinging from one ship to another in his, you know, with his perfectly coiffier massage and beating up all those other nasty pirates while he's actually a pirate himself, which then completely is a whitewashes that history, or whether you actually wanna make a game that feels a bit like being a pirate or try and recreate that feeling, in which case you can't really hide away from that history, you know, which is again which is what we've done in tales of the old West, and we've gained quite a lot of credit for that, I think, in in being brave enough to challenge the real history.

Matthew: 18:03

And But also handling it carefully.

Dave: 18:06

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

Matthew: 18:09

Yeah. Yeah. We won an award. You know that.

Dave: 18:14

We did. I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that you you snuck the the trophy back home with you without offering it to me on Friday.

Matthew: 18:22

Was just dismantling this down, Pete, but it's sitting here on, on the mantelpiece just waiting for you actually to pick it up when you come along next week. Oh, no. You're not coming next week because you're going on holiday.

Dave: 18:37

Yeah. No. So, yeah. I mean, how how how surreal is that, really? It's

Matthew: 18:43

Is this a point where we should stop World of Gaming and do a dissection of UK games.

Dave: 18:49

Unless you've got anything else worthwhile to say in World of Gaming. Not particularly. I

Matthew: 18:57

I haven't that was the only bit of news that caught my eye.

Dave: 19:01

Yeah. I haven't. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's let's segue beautifully onto UK Games Expo then and, and I guess, you know, the the let's not let's not hide the, hide the lead.

Dave: 19:14

You know, I mean, if people don't know it already, what have you been doing? But we we were delighted to win the judges' choice award for best role playing game for Tales of the Old West. Just it was quite fun. Just a little anecdote here. So we went along to the, to the prize giving, the the ceremony, which is fabulous.

Dave: 19:32

Quite well filled room down at the two suite. Probably

Matthew: 19:34

I'm gonna say this is on the Thursday evening, so Yes. We'd broken off from setting up the stand, and Yeah. Went off to the two suite, yeah.

Dave: 19:42

And we were, we were last, but we were the last awards to be, to be given out. And I walked I was kind of sitting on a chair slightly closer to them. So as we walked in, I was going first. And as I walked up, there was all this lovely cheering and clapping and everything and which was kind of more enthusiastic than they'd been for everybody else. And I thought, oh, wow.

Dave: 20:00

How nice is that? It was only afterwards when you told me you would be, like, playing to the crowd as we were going along and geeing them up.

Matthew: 20:07

Yes. Behind you.

Dave: 20:09

You can see,

Matthew: 20:10

but there's me.

Dave: 20:10

Reaction of, oh, well done, guys. Lovely. Well done. It was you playing the clown behind me. But that's fine.

Dave: 20:17

It was it was a lot

Dave: 20:18

of fun. It was a lot

Dave: 20:19

of fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean

Matthew: 20:23

I mean, the key thing is they did give us the biggest cheer even if they had to be reminded to. You know? They could have sat in in cold Yeah. They didn't. They didn't.

Matthew: 20:37

Now, and then, actually, let's follow this story to its natural conclusion. All the games and products that win the Judges' Choice Award get put in for the people's vote. And in the role playing section, there are only three Judges' Choice Awards for best role playing game, for best role playing adventure and for best role playing supplemental expansion. And so I have to say I got this totally wrong. I thought I well, no, I didn't get it totally wrong.

Matthew: 21:17

I didn't think we were going to win the People's Choice Award because, you know, we've sold this game to what, maybe a thousand people so far? Not all of whom are at UK Games Expo. And there are we will talk about numbers at UK Games Expo in a minute, but that's a tiny, tiny proportion of the people who are there. And so I couldn't see us winning the popular vote. But you know, where I got it entirely wrong was I thought Chaosium was more likely to win it because they've got that, you know, they're the oldest surviving role playing game company now in the world.

Matthew: 21:55

They've got, it was Call of Cthulhu Adventure was the adventure that won. And that's got to be, okay, not as big as D and D, but one of the biggest games around the world nationally and here in The UK. So I thought they were the competition. It turns out, no, they weren't. The competition was a D and D supplement.

Matthew: 22:19

And not even a D and D supplement from

Dave: 22:24

From Wizards of the Coast.

Matthew: 22:25

Wizards of the Coast. No. Yeah. A third party D and D supplement.

Dave: 22:29

I I think it's yeah. I mean, I've got no idea of the quality of their product. It's probably very, very good, I expect, obviously, to get, you know, to get the awards. It's gotta be. But, yeah, I mean, we were we this is like David and Goliath when Goliath has got, you know, his friends with him for us to win.

Dave: 22:47

We're up against such big, competition that, yeah, we were never gonna win the people's vote. Despite the the the frantic efforts of many of our friends and family who who were voting as often as they could, which probably entirely against the spirit of things. But, yeah, so, I mean, thank you for everyone who did vote for us. Thank you to the judges for selecting, you know, our game to win the to win the judges choice award. But, yeah, I think the People's Choice Award was was, you know, next year maybe or next time perhaps.

Dave: 23:22

You never know.

Matthew: 23:22

Not next year. We'll get a product out.

Dave: 23:25

I know.

Matthew: 23:25

We'll be very lucky to maybe be launching a product next year. Yeah. So, so anyway, that that's that's that's our award. It it slightly makes me feel, that we've understood a chance in any's even if we've got books into The US in time to send them to the judges. So I'm feeling slightly less bad about missing the deadline on that.

Matthew: 23:50

But Yeah. Anyway.

Dave: 23:53

Smack that we won anyway. I mean, it's gonna, you know, just a two man band, notwithstanding the the wider team of of fabulous, artists, writers, layout experts, and all the rest of it.

Matthew: 24:05

That we thanked last time just in mind.

Dave: 24:06

Who helped us. Yeah. I know. I I'm just making you know. Even though we are it is a two man band.

Dave: 24:13

It is a two man band with a wider team.

Matthew: 24:15

Yes. Lovely lovely people. And of course all our patrons.

Dave: 24:19

Indeed. Absolutely. Yeah.

Matthew: 24:21

So that was very nice. And we got lots of nice words said. How did we do financially?

Dave: 24:27

We did all right.

Matthew: 24:29

We did all right. Yes. Now at the time we thought we were doing better than we did last year.

Dave: 24:37

Yeah, I'm quite surprised when you told me those figures actually.

Matthew: 24:42

This is partly my memory of last year was a little bit corrupted. So last year we'd sold, I remember selling quite a lot on the Friday. I thought quite a lot on the Saturday and not so much on the Sunday, but actually our worst day last year was on the Saturday where I came back

Dave: 25:03

Friday from

Matthew: 25:04

the best

Dave: 25:05

day last year wasn't it?

Matthew: 25:06

Yeah. Friday was definitely the best day. I think we only sold 11 books on the Sunday, sorry, on the Saturday, and we actually sold nearer 20 on the Sunday. This year we sold over 20 books each of those three days. Which is good.

Dave: 25:29

Sunday was very good. Actually our Sunday was almost as good as our Saturday which was

Matthew: 25:35

Yeah. So and also and also we were we were keeping a tally of it. I I worry that maybe we did a bit of double counting on that tally where we'd put a put a sale down and we thought, oh, put that

Dave: 25:46

sale down. Was was always intended to be a rough guide to how much we were doing rather than an exact amount.

Matthew: 25:53

But when you when you you added it up, it was over well, with the with the last sales I made, we had two core books left over, which I sold to All World Up, as they are won't to come around buying stock. And so with that sale, I think you'd calculated we were over £4.

Dave: 26:14

Yeah. On the basis of our noted down figures as we've gone along.

Matthew: 26:21

And that's not actually the money we got in the bank account, but that's not fine. We're still, you know, up close to £4,000. But in fact actually we're also up close to last year's sales so I thought we were going to beat I thought all this time we were comfortably beating last year's sales and it turned out we won even though I think we did sell more books.

Dave: 26:41

Yeah. I guess last time we had more dice sales and that kind of stuff. Didn't sell very many. We sold quite a lot of GM screens, but didn't sell very many. And we sold the one pack of dice we had left, sold that in about ten minutes.

Matthew: 26:53

Yes.

Dave: 26:53

And so we could, if we'd had more, got, I'm sure we'd have sold a load more dice.

Matthew: 26:57

Yeah. It is, it is really interesting that it's, it's, you know, I, I, I've always kind of spurned special dice because you don't need them. You know, I thought it was worth doing it for the Kickstarter because people like to let things on Kickstarters. But not only did the sales figures prove how much extra value they gave us last year in terms of income, but the people coming and asking about them and saying, have we got some? Are we going to do some new ones?

Dave: 27:29

I mean, who knew gamers love dice?

Matthew: 27:31

Yeah. Well, knows, James love our dice? Know, I thought there's, you know, were half a, probably 500 stans in this exhibition selling dice that would do. But no, they wanted our dice, which was special. Yeah, I'm changing my mind on producing dice.

Matthew: 27:55

Also the fact that then when somebody's got a dice trade, maybe they're more inclined sorry, when somebody's got a pack of dice, they might be more inclined to get the dice trade to go with it and stuff like It's interesting to see that total number of sales I think were up on last year but value of sales was down because we didn't have those supplementary lines.

Dave: 28:16

Yeah, exactly.

Matthew: 28:17

Yeah.

Dave: 28:18

But I mean, but a really good weekend for us. I mean, I've Yeah.

Matthew: 28:22

Yeah. Very peaceful weekend. We we paid for Yeah.

Dave: 28:26

So we haven't really worked out a yardstick as to what would be a good weekend. So I think going into it, you know, my minimum was just breaking even. And as I think you were about to say, we managed that on Friday. Yes. So everything else, everything else was gravy.

Dave: 28:41

Yeah. Absolutely great.

Matthew: 28:46

And I think we would have done it even if we paid ourselves to actually stand on the stand.

Dave: 28:50

Yeah. Probably. Yeah.

Matthew: 28:51

You and I don't take any money for that. Because we're skim plimp bosses. Yeah. And, we're walk over employees. But we spent, actually I think we spent most of our time, each of us, on the effects to hand because there were only two of us doing that.

Matthew: 29:14

Yeah. But we also spend a bit of our time, a few hours every day on the Free League stand and they seem to do pretty well as well, didn't they?

Dave: 29:23

Yeah. Again, I mean, a good a really good Friday. Friday was the best day, I think, all around this year. Mhmm. Saturday wasn't quite as good as Friday, but it wasn't far off.

Dave: 29:36

And then Sunday is always a little bit quiet, but I think we did better this year, this Sunday than last year. So I think overall, it was definitely up, on previous years. I mean, I was chatting to, to Alan from GMS. So GMS being our our distributor.

Matthew: 29:52

Our distributors, but they've also got big retail presence there. Yeah.

Dave: 29:55

But they have a big retail. And and they're doing really well because they're getting more and more clients. So they're getting bigger and bigger which is brilliant. But Alan was saying that they had done 50% more on Friday than the previous year which is a really nice bump up. They were doing really well.

Dave: 30:10

And they were selling Tales of the Old West. I don't know how many copies they sold. But, yeah, it sounds like, I mean, it's funny actually, because I've heard varying things from from a lot of people. I've heard that story that, you know, it's been it's been good. We've had a had a really, really good good convention.

Dave: 30:27

I've had heard from others but kind of hearsay rather than from the horse's mouth. There are quite a few other people were kinda really struggling to, to do well. So I don't know whether that's true or, and, you know, I I don't know whether there's there's, you know, again, like, there's there's there's trends and, you know, people come to UK Games Expo this year to do x, and that means purveyors of y have a have a worse convention than they might otherwise have hoped.

Matthew: 30:54

Yeah. I'm just looking at the top selling products on the Felix stand. And we sold out of quite early, and we should have had more, Tales of the White Wizard, Hands of the White Wizard, the Saruman supplement for The One Thing. But the perennial good seller here is the Versen Core book, Then is number the Alien Core book, which comes number three in valued, not necessarily in numbers because we only have the feeling you've only got the special edition now. They've sold out of all the standard editions.

Matthew: 31:33

We discounted that but it's still people paid over the odds for that. Then Morkborg, One Ring Call Rules, they sold 27 copies of Frontier Scum. So we're just back to our previous point that, Westerns are doing quite well at the moment.

Dave: 31:55

Are in vogue at the moment. Yeah. And the one thing I was really pleased to see, even though we didn't bring many copies, was how popular Forbidden Land still seemed. I I don't if you said, well, we sold all of them. We only, but we only had kind of half a dozen copies, I think.

Matthew: 32:09

Mean, had 10 copies and we sold them.

Dave: 32:10

When was it?

Matthew: 32:11

In in the I mean, that was quite soon.

Dave: 32:14

Yeah. That was that was quite an easy sell as well. The people who were coming to look at it were were very interested and didn't need a lot of encouraging, a lot of persuading to buy it, which is brilliant because it's such a good game. I'm delighted that it's still it's still hanging on and in there.

Matthew: 32:31

Yeah. I'm just trying to look for the Pirate Borg starter set, which, again, we sold out quite quickly. And I raved about it when I was on the stand to anybody who would listen. Yeah. We sold 20 copies of the Pirate Borg starter set.

Dave: 32:44

But did you see so so what's the name of the company for Pirate Ball? Begins with an

Matthew: 32:52

l. Limitron. Limitron.

Dave: 32:55

Did you see their stand?

Matthew: 32:57

I didn't see their stand. No.

Dave: 32:58

Didn't Oh my god. You missed that. I think they must have got the prize for the best stand in the whole place because they had quite a large sort of square stand with, like, tables on two sides, and then they had like, they're they're a corner. They're on the end of a row, so they had two sides of their, like, banners and stuff. A little way into the internal part of it where they had a, a table set up for demos like inside the shop kind of thing.

Dave: 33:26

Really cool. But then the the the the piece de resistance was in the middle. There was, a mast and sails with rigging.

Matthew: 33:37

Yeah.

Dave: 33:38

Absolutely brilliant. It they did a superb job, on that. It just looked fabulous. It was, yeah. It looked really cool.

Dave: 33:46

So, 10 out of 10 to them for the I'm sure that was for me, anyway, that was the best, the best stand of the whole place.

Matthew: 33:54

Brilliant. Are you saying that we need to get like a hitching post or something or soon

Dave: 33:58

A gallow of doors.

Matthew: 34:02

The line. Down the line.

Dave: 34:04

Yeah. What have got enough money?

Matthew: 34:06

I am happy that we we made our presence felt, and I'd I'd happily pay the I was worried that we wouldn't cover the cost of the expensive stand because we got it really cheaply last year because there was a slight screw up on, their part and also because we were it was our first year, so there's a beginner's offer. Yeah. It doesn't normally get you a stand as good as that, but in this case it did. And this time I paid for the stand. We liked it so much, right on the main thoroughfare It's corner

Dave: 34:40

a good spot.

Matthew: 34:40

I'll do it again, but I'm not looking to expand it so that we can fit a mast and sails in.

Dave: 34:46

Well, the mast and sails would be inappropriate, but yeah.

Matthew: 34:49

Well, yeah. The hedging post, saloon doors, you know what I mean.

Dave: 34:52

For now. I mean, once once we're huge, we've got dozens of products then maybe. But Yeah. Yeah. For now, let's, let's stick with what we've got.

Dave: 35:00

If we can get that spot again for next year, that would be brilliant because that was that's a really good spot.

Matthew: 35:06

Yeah. That's lovely. I think we'll go for it again. And knowing that we can afford it. Yes.

Matthew: 35:11

What was I gonna say? What was I yeah. I was The thing I didn't do this year was walk around the other stands.

Dave: 35:19

I didn't get much chance to do that either.

Matthew: 35:22

I mean you and I were working twice as hard as all our colleagues on the free lease because we were running two stands. So we did give ourselves a bit of a break, but frankly all I wanted to do on those breaks is grab some lunch and sit down for a bit. So promised myself that I'd go and have a look at Gallow's Corner. I promised the guys at Gallow's Corner that I'd go and have a look at Gallow's Corner. Didn't get to that stand.

Dave: 35:54

So what's Gallow's Corner?

Matthew: 35:56

So this is from the three sales. The guys who beat us at Dragonmeat with Mappa Mundi and are therefore

Dave: 36:07

Oh, yeah.

Matthew: 36:07

Were therefore our evil nemesis until we until we won the award here at UK Games Expo now. Now they are defeated enemies and good friends. And Gallows Corner is their Peasants' Revolt role playing game. I'm actually going play it tonight with Thomas who's running it for us.

Dave: 36:34

I did see that actually.

Matthew: 36:39

It looks lovely. And I was thinking about buying it, but didn't get to spend any money. Didn't get to spend any money at all. The only bit of swag I bought back was a book that we agreed to swap with a guy off the cubicle seven stand.

Dave: 36:56

Yeah, the laundry file.

Matthew: 36:58

Yeah, the Players Corbett for that. And it's quite nice. It's obviously the special edition version because it has fabric cover with embossed silver. I'm still grokking the rules. I haven't had much time to look at that.

Matthew: 37:15

That's what I was going to do on Monday, but it just sat there unopened. Couldn't be bothered even to get the cellophane off. That's how tired I was. So yeah, I didn't see any other stands really.

Dave: 37:27

So I didn't get really much chance to go and do that either. Normally I like to go and chat to a few people. I stopped off at Modiphius for a bit, which is nice to catch up with guys. There was there's a guy there's a guy I work with at Modiphius called Rob Heppelfwaite. And, he he's the guy I work with for Co Co Home Cthulhu.

Dave: 37:47

And great guy. Real pleasure to work with. His picture because I'd only ever seen him. I only ever talked to him online. So his little picture, I've never seen a a video picture of him, but his little, like, icon picture kind of implied a a a short, thin, weedy, long haired nerd.

Dave: 38:04

Yep. This guy came up to me and said, hello, Dave. I'm Rob, and I had to just keep looking up. He's about, like, six foot six and a huge bloke. But it was fabulous to see to meet him and chat to him in person.

Dave: 38:17

That was really cool. And it was always nice to have a quick chat with the other people I know at Medifius. They're always they're a really nice bunch of folks. But didn't really get much chance to to to talk to anybody else really which is.

Matthew: 38:29

No. I I spoke briefly with you and Nor from what book from?

Dave: 38:37

Stockholm hotel. Was talking to his stand because I didn't see

Matthew: 38:43

his stand at all but he decided that his stand was too small and next time they come they're going to have a bigger stand.

Dave: 38:49

Ah okay. Cool.

Matthew: 38:50

Cool. He said, you know, he he didn't want people with third party products, Morp Borg derived products having bigger stands than he did.

Dave: 38:59

Ah yeah yeah. No that's fair enough. He's got a bit of a he's got a bit of a way to go then to beat.

Matthew: 39:05

Limitron.

Dave: 39:06

Yeah. Limitron. Why do I not forget? Why do I not remember that name? No.

Dave: 39:11

The, I always

Matthew: 39:12

I'm thinking I might have mispronounced it.

Dave: 39:14

Let me just have a quick look. No. Believe you're right. Nothing on. Limitron or Limitron.

Matthew: 39:20

Limithron. Yeah. There's a t h in there. I was missing that. Limithron or yeah.

Matthew: 39:25

Anyway.

Dave: 39:26

Yeah. So I I I always oh, yeah. I mean, traditionally, I would have a impulse buy. I'd buy some game that I'm probably not gonna play, but just because I wanna treat myself to something while I'm at the convention.

Matthew: 39:37

Oh, but you did have an impulse buy,

Dave: 39:39

didn't I did have an impulse buy, but it wasn't a game. It wasn't a game that that I sort of grabbed. So the last couple of years, I I got the Gaia complex from our friend friend of the show, Shep. I also got another year, Heart and Spire from, again, again, our friends, Rowan, Rook and Deckard, which is cool. Again, not with either of them, but it's nice to

Matthew: 40:00

have No. I I picked up Spire, I think, or heart. One one of the two from them in a previous yeah.

Dave: 40:08

But there was no games this year that I kinda grabbed me. So I, for the last two or three years, I've been sort of sidling by. There's a I don't I don't know what the company's called. I can't remember. But it's a it's a it's a weapon replica stand.

Dave: 40:21

They have a big stand. They do all sorts of stuff. They do helmets and lightsabers and swords and and like

Matthew: 40:27

Oh, yeah. So I think they were, again, on the main thoroughfare. I passed

Dave: 40:31

the tour. They were they were quite they were right into Asthma Day and Yeah. Gamesfest. And then it's a big stall. They've got lots and lots of things on offer.

Dave: 40:39

And but they also have some lovely, replica western pistols. And I've been looking at those for the last couple of years. And then kind of sort of thought, no, I'm not that nerdy. I'm not gonna get one of those. But this year, I thought, I've got nothing else to look at.

Dave: 40:54

So I'll just go and have a I'll go and have a feel. Kind of thinking, not really sure even what they were made out of, but they look they look metal. And the guy there was, yeah, the guy got the gun down for me. It was a, a Manhattan Navy pistol that was very common back in the West and it's in our book.

Matthew: 41:13

We've got rules for it.

Dave: 41:14

We've got rules for it. And it looked kind of like a dressed version. So it's kind of like got gold bra. It's got a brass and silver and all that. It looked absolutely lovely.

Dave: 41:25

As soon as I felt the heft, because it's made out of metal, it's got it's got a real weight to it. Obviously, it's got the action. You can you can pop the hammer and stuff. I just thought, yeah, I'm gonna have that. So so I bought it.

Dave: 41:40

Thinking my wife is gonna gonna is gonna say, oh my god. What the hell have you bought that for? Which is exactly what she said when I got home and showed it to her. But then, then she she picked it up and and held it, and she absolutely loved it. She wouldn't give it back.

Dave: 41:57

So phew. So, you

Matthew: 41:59

know Yeah. There is a thing actually about how it looks where you might go, well, that could be metal, but it could also be plastic covered in

Dave: 42:06

Exactly. Yeah. That's what I was

Matthew: 42:08

And then when when you pick it up in your hand and feel the heft of it and the the wood, actually, the wooden handle is the thing that most impresses me. Not not because I'm impressed by a wooden handle, but actually the feel of it in your hand. Yeah.

Dave: 42:22

No. It's lovely. I'm I'm I'm very pleased with my with my impulse purchase this year.

Matthew: 42:28

Cool. So that was your impulse purchase. As I say, I didn't purchase anything.

Dave: 42:37

So I guess the other thing we ought to discuss is why this was the tidest you've ever been. We haven't gone there yet.

Matthew: 42:46

No. Well, yeah. Actually, there's a number of reasons for this. For a start, the last time we stayed at this hotel, it had air conditioning, if I recall correctly.

Dave: 43:02

I certainly don't remember it not having air conditioning.

Matthew: 43:05

Not that I can remember, it being great air conditioning or otherwise, but there was evidence that they'd taken all the air conditioning out of the hotel this time, and there was no air conditioning is where we're coming to here. Yeah. And it was really hot, and I hardly slept most nights.

Dave: 43:23

Yeah. I think I was lucky because I was in a corner room so we had windows on two sides.

Matthew: 43:29

Ah yes. Yeah.

Dave: 43:30

When we when we first arrived I immediately went to turn the air con on because we were all really hot and sweaty and everything. And I was like, where the fuck's the air conditioning? And the way the little control panel should be was just like a brass plate had been screwed into the wall. And it soon dawned on us that there wasn't any. And I was really getting like, yeah, I was really worried it would be a real problem, but luckily for me anyway, it was cool enough.

Dave: 43:55

And I I actually slept quite well. Normally, don't sleep brilliantly well, certainly not on the first night away. But, yeah, I actually felt I slept quite well. So sorry, mate.

Matthew: 44:04

No. That's okay. So but the other thing is I stayed up late as well in a way that I don't normally, particularly on Friday night because I was working. Goddamn it.

Dave: 44:17

Yes. Well, I mean, this is how you get to spend time with volunteers for these things, mate. What do you expect?

Matthew: 44:21

Yeah. So what I did is I was I want to say running but not really running it was kind of more but it was a more active running than when I used to MC the Dragonbane tournament. Yeah. So this year, there was a slight reluctance to do Dragonbane again on both Free League and UK Games Expo's part. And what they really wanted was an epic alien adventure with 60 people, which is initially written or initially they wanted that to be the tournament.

Matthew: 45:05

So you and I had a bit of a chat at DragonBeat actually about how that might pan out. And it panned out quite a lot like that, except I did write a scoring scheme, but then in the end we decided not to bother with it, partly because there were so many people saying, Where's the Dragonbane tournament? That we actually ran a Dragonbane tournament as well. Anyway, well, say we. I said I'm having nothing to do with that.

Dave: 45:29

UK Games Expo. Right? Yeah.

Matthew: 45:31

Yeah. UK Games Expo. And the lovely Bruce, who's one of our patrons, became effectively emcee there. And, as far as I'm aware, that went very well. I can't remember.

Matthew: 45:41

There weren't all that many tables in there. No. I think there were about 20 players, four

Dave: 45:45

Yeah, wasn't as big as Alien, was it? No.

Matthew: 45:47

Yeah. But the Alien was the new and shiny thing. I wrote an adventure called All Hands On Deck and it was great. It was great. The first half was, or the first act, I should say, pretty much exactly as planned.

Matthew: 46:05

I kind of don't want to spoil it for people who might want to play it because if you want to play it, you can, it's going to be run again. I'm not emceeing this time because I'm on my own on the free league stand, but I've given it.

Dave: 46:22

Oh, is this something in Scotland?

Matthew: 46:23

In Scotland, so people at tabletop Scotland. So they're not going to have 60 players. They're going to cut it down a bit, and and they're gonna run an adventure there. Or, if you're a patron of this show, you can now find it on your Patreon page as a swag thing. I just put it up last night and that comes with GM's notes as it were, 12 maps, which doesn't sound as great value as you think it is because those maps, because it was a tournament, I wanted everybody to be working on effectively the same map.

Matthew: 47:04

So some of the room names change to make sure that you have to go along the whole map to get to your objective. But actually the map layout is exactly the same for everyone. And five I was calling them pregen, and I realized they're part generated characters because you have to do a little bit of filling in to give them your own individual twist at the beginning of the adventure. And, so that's all available on the Patreon if you want to take a look at it. If you want to spoil yourself and see what there were aliens, obviously.

Matthew: 47:39

There was Xenomorphs, obviously, but there was another new threat which everybody seemed to quite like. Played along with it. Everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. I think the second act was a little bit

Dave: 47:51

of a

Matthew: 47:51

walkover. The second act becomes kind of PVP where you swap tables around and effectively it's half the crew against the other half. It was a bit of a walkover for one half of the crew. So I've slightly changed the victory conditions in the vertical. I was

Dave: 48:08

just saying,

Matthew: 48:08

was that

Dave: 48:09

because it was slightly easier for one crew to win than the other?

Matthew: 48:13

Yeah. Yeah. So I've changed the victory conditions from a of which was a do this x times into a do this as many times as you want, and then dice rolls are involved. And the more times you do it, the more chance you have of those dice rolls succeeding. I'm being really vague here on purpose.

Dave: 48:36

Yeah. Yeah. No. That makes sense, just in case somebody wants to play it in the future.

Matthew: 48:42

That was fun, but that means I got back to hotel after midnight, fell into bed, then didn't sleep very well.

Dave: 48:51

And got up at six.

Matthew: 48:52

And, yeah. And then, oh, dear. Dear me. That traffic on that first Friday. Shall we talk about that for a bit?

Dave: 49:00

No. I was I was the last thing I was just gonna say there is to commend you on your effort on all of that because when we'd originally talked about it at at Dragon Meet, it was kind of a suggestion that we would kind of do it together but then it it just kind of became easier for you to do it and then you took all of that upon yourself. So, you know, in a good way, I'm not feeling like elbowed out at all because I didn't have time with Alien and other staff.

Matthew: 49:25

No. Yeah. You've been working, on on on a proper paid Alien adventure. Yeah. No.

Matthew: 49:31

You can't talk about when can we talk about that one? Do you know?

Dave: 49:35

In more detail? Not yet, I guess is the answer to that. Yeah. You know, I just wanted to commend you for all your effort and all the work you put into that. And certainly the the feedback I heard from people who were there was was super you know, superbly positive.

Dave: 49:48

So, yeah, I think you've got a a world's pat on the back for a job very well done, mate. Well done.

Matthew: 49:53

And, of course, you know, I I just wanna say well done to all the I have to tell you one thing, actually, one of the GMs said, but all the GMs were great. Some of the GMs are patrons of the show. So just a quick shout out to Bruce again to Frank too. Frank wasn't actually in the end GMing. He'd been assigned to GM, but Millie was going to do a bit of running around and actually had to go and deal with an emergency somewhere else.

Matthew: 50:19

So Frank stepped into her role as effectively runner and organizer, and he's taken some video as well. But what I realized we should have done is get everybody's consent there so we could share that video in some sort of public format. And I don't think he could not as an actual play, but as a kind of compilation thing. We didn't really do that. So Bruce has now got that video, but he needs to think very carefully about how he's gonna handle that.

Matthew: 50:44

Not Bruce. Frank, So, should yes, thanks to everybody to do that. But the thing I wanted to say was right from the outset, this is ages ago, probably years ago now in podcast terms, we created HMS Yamato, didn't we, for one of our episodes? Yeah. And we talked a bit about what the Royal Navy might look like in the, yeah, in the alien And we also, for our patrons, and we need to do another hard bit of swag for top level patrons.

Matthew: 51:26

But our patrons also got a, HMS Gematro cloth badge, which looked very good on my navy surplus uniform that I, got just a week before the thing for for him seeing this thing. And when I was writing this adventure, wanted to make it distinctly Royal Navy. So instead of Marines, we had regulators, which isn't which actually we don't have in the Royal Navy anymore. They're Royal Navy police or something boring like that, but they used to be called regulators. What a great name that is.

Matthew: 52:04

And instead of corporate types, I had a writer, which is what my dad was in the navy. Do you know why he was a writer in the navy?

Dave: 52:13

Tell me.

Matthew: 52:15

Because he was in the navy for war service, after the war had finished, hadn't started national service yet. They were still doing war service. And all through the war, he'd been in the ATC hoping to become a pilot. And they didn't need pilots or indeed anybody in the RAF after the war had finished. So that was not going to happen.

Matthew: 52:38

It was Navy or Army. And he chose Navy. Was just going in as a rating. Wasn't going to go in as an officer or anything. But if you go in as a writer, which is kind of accountant clerk on on the ships is is their is their Yep.

Matthew: 52:57

Is their function. You know? They do radios and messages and all sorts of stuff like that, but they're not tech they're they're more bureaucratic rather than technical. But writers, even if their ratings get to wear peaked caps, and that's and my dad was not gonna be seen dead in one of those stupid navy hats. So he needed a pickup.

Matthew: 53:19

Anyway, that's a little

Dave: 53:20

It's as good a motivation as any to get a job, isn't it?

Matthew: 53:24

So we had Reuters, I had regulators, they're the two key ones, and I had kind of medical officers and engineers and stuff like that. And chief petty officers instead of officers. No, I didn't. I had midshipmen instead of the officer class because I just So want to junior officer. Anyway, so there was those Navy terms scattered throughout the characters.

Matthew: 53:51

And also, was some, you know, the timing was in bells and stuff like that.

Dave: 53:56

Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: 53:57

And one of the GMs said, were you in the Navy? And I said, no. I told to explain that my dad was. He said, I was in the Navy and this is really good.

Dave: 54:10

Okay, cool.

Matthew: 54:12

He thought I'd captured the Royal Navy.

Dave: 54:16

Vibe really well.

Matthew: 54:18

Wasn't it? So that was lovely. So that was that.

Dave: 54:25

You were going to talk about the exciting topic of traffic, Matt.

Matthew: 54:28

Traffic, yeah, that was weird. So, well, I don't know. Talking about traffic is boring. Now you said they'd like that. But we were surprised, were we not, on the first Friday and talking about

Dave: 54:45

You might not want to talk about traffic, that's all, but you didn't take it.

Matthew: 54:50

The traffic to get in was horrible.

Dave: 54:54

Was a lot of roadworks as well.

Matthew: 54:56

Then we'd got new payment devices for the Free League stand from Games Quest. So effectively we operate as if you like a branch of Games Quest, so they do all the payment stuff. The new payment devices, one of them wasn't working at all. So that was all a bit of a panic at 09:00 as people were coming in.

Dave: 55:22

It wasn't that fine in the end. Mean luckily the other one seemed to be pretty reliable on the whole, didn't it?

Matthew: 55:27

Yeah, the other one was fine, absolutely fine. In fact it turned out really we only needed one. But there were times when two would have been useful and we didn't

Dave: 55:36

have those.

Matthew: 55:38

Yeah, the traffic on that first day was dreadful. I ended up just taking a diversion and going to park in a South car park, which actually turned out to be nearer than the ones they normally send us to. We should use the car park.

Dave: 55:49

Our hotel is five minute drive away if the if there's no traffic. It took us an hour on Friday and I had to let Dean and Anna out of the car whilst we were sat in the queue so they could actually get in and do some stuff. And I got into it all about ten to nine. And yet having left the hotel at sort of twenty to eight. So so the next day, Dean and I got up stupidly early.

Matthew: 56:13

Oh, yeah. We were disappointed that breakfast wasn't open early enough at those.

Dave: 56:17

I was I was very disappointed that breakfast wasn't available at 06:45 and and made my disappointment, you know, politely clear to the staff, but, I hadn't realized that. So but we then there was no traffic at all. So me and Dean got in hour and three quarters ahead of time, which is fine because we I went and got some breakfast and chilled out, but still, you know, it was it was a long time.

Matthew: 56:38

Where was open for breakfast for you? Where did you have your breakfast?

Dave: 56:41

Oh, it was Robbie. Just Starbucks. Alright. I got a sandwich and a cup of coffee. Now, that was where I had my my one cappuccino of the year.

Dave: 56:50

But yeah, so just have better to have something rather than nothing.

Matthew: 56:54

Yeah. And but then on the I I was determined then to go to the South Car Park again and it was no problem at all. It was really weird.

Dave: 57:02

Yeah. And then, yes, Saturday, Sunday was fine, wasn't it?

Matthew: 57:05

Yeah.

Dave: 57:07

So Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what was going on on the Friday. It was just bonkers. But, yeah, it was alright.

Dave: 57:15

We got there in the end, didn't we? So, yeah, and then I had a fun drive home. Thanks for crash on the M one and and the a one and the A one being shut because

Matthew: 57:26

So we did promise ourselves only an hour of recording, and I think if we've already got to talking about the traffic on the way to UK going to Exvo, that probably means it's time to end end our discussion. Anybody Oh, I will just

Dave: 57:40

wasn't listening anymore because we're talking about the traffic.

Matthew: 57:43

Yeah. I also want to express some sympathy for people staying in Birmingham on the Sunday where they didn't have any trains between Birmingham and expos. So that was really annoying for a whole bunch of people, including friend of the show and patron Craig. But anyway, traffic problems are where we should draw the curtains closed over this year at UK Games Expo.

Dave: 58:10

Yeah. I agree. I agree.

Matthew: 58:12

Cool. And as we mentioned earlier on, we have got a couple of ideas for what we're doing in a couple of weeks' but we can't remember what they are. But one of them will happen.

Dave: 58:22

Yeah. One of them will happen.

Matthew: 58:25

In the meantime, it's goodbye goodbye from me.

Dave: 58:28

And it's goodbye from him.

Matthew: 58:30

And may the icons bless your adventures.

Dave: 58:36

You have been listening to the Effekt podcast, presented by Fiction Suit and the RPG Gods. Music stars on a black sea used with permission of Free League Publishing.