This video is brought to you in part by TrueTech Tools. Quality tools, essential support. Now there is also oil inside too. Unfortunately, I can hear thunder. May not be able to pull the crazy, crazy deep vacuum with the blue hoses as usual. Because man, it's not looking very good out there. So today we're working on a VNA system. The thermostat said it was low pressure. So I assume it's low pressure, like refrigerant pressure pulled off the insulation. And we've got oil all over down here. Let's see if we've got a leak. A little bit windy. So hopefully we can pick it up. And if it is not a leak, then it's probably somebody. Yep. Yep. Yeah, it's a little guber-fied. A little bit guber-fied. Yeah, it's always on that bottom side where people can't get the heat to it. Is there any up here on all this crap? Because man, oh man, they've got it all caked in there. And then on top of that, they have sulfur water, which has a tendency to cause leaks on the evaporator. So let's go down there and take a look. All right, so looking down here, some of these welds look pretty fishy. And we've got oil down here. I don't know if this, comparing to that to this, it looks like this may have been a repair job. Because I'm not picking up anything, even though I see shiny oil. And I've scanned all of this. And I'm not picking up anything on any of it. I think what I'm going to do, since I got a pump system down anyway, I think I'm going to warm this up, re-braze that stuff. Because that'll be the next trip back out for that. The coil, luckily, is aluminum. You can see this black stuff. That is the sulfur water that attacks the copper. And we'll eat into, believe it or not, braze joints more than silver, because silver's more pure. Completely scanned everything over here. And I am not picking up anything on that. Usually though, it'll leak on this TXV because it's not aluminum. You know, leak on that equalizer tube over there. I'm not getting anything, but I mean, I have a lot of pressure on this thing either. Went ahead and hooked on the high side here. We're at 14.9. And that's why we're probably having a hard time finding the other leaks. We've got quite a mess there on that.  I don't like all that laying around. We're going to get all that nasty. Fridgen oil off of there, which also helps not to flame up on us when we're trying to re-braze this. We're going to get this thing cleaned up and we're not even going to salvage this refrigerant. We're going to pull the rest of it out. Filter dryer never got pulled into a negative. I'm going to just go ahead and reuse that. We're not really theoretically opening it up.  Looks like seven eighths. That looks like three quarters. That might have something to do with it. Used our monstrous long extension here. So this allowed me to get in here completely to all these different areas and get that cleaned up. We went ahead and got the remainder recovered. We got straighter core pulled. We're going to bleed nitrogen through there and we're going to just re-braze each one of these. So we've got our wet rag here by refrigeration technologies. I've tried the other stuff too and it's good stuff. But what I like about this in particular, I'm able to just put it where I wanted at and it holds there. It don't have to get it super wet. It just fits all the way around there so easily. It's so pliable.  Pretty cool. We got that all cleaned up. We're going to go ahead and get that brazed in. We got our nitrogen flowing through here. We're going to start over here the furthest away. The way we got the heat going to the valve last as much as possible. It's going to naturally transfer over to it, but I always like to work my way into the pipe here first. Then we'll start getting over to where it connects and we'll add a little bit of breeze to it and then we'll eventually start to suck it into the pocket. Get it liquidy. There we go and pull it in. Pull it into the spot. Pull it in. Get all in there. See how that little doober got on the bottom? We'll wipe that off here in a second with a rod. Add a little extra.  This is probably where it was leaking out was on the back side. It's usually that's where everybody has a hard time getting their heat to it. And depending on what kind of torch you're using, you can always direct your flame where it needs to be at. So I don't like turbo torches. They're pretty well toasted, that protected stuff, unfortunately. I just don't trust these, so that's why I'm going to go ahead and redo it, too. Take a couple seconds to clean it up, especially on brand new copper. We've got everything cleaned up. Most of all, that was salvageable. A little bit that gets burnt that you have to throw away. But you can see that we actually got it pulled in to the joint. Everything's smooth through here. And same thing here on this side here. We've got everything wrapped around. Everything feels good. Same thing with that piece right there. We're just actually going to use a wet rag on this one. I'm going to put it back here. That way you're protecting your bulb. I don't know how many of these have screwed up super heat that run like one and two degrees because I think the guys aren't removing these bulbs and then they roast them because all that heat conducts and travels right to that bulb, causes that bulb to press down on the stem in there and just screws everything up. So we're going to go ahead and hit this one up first. Go ahead and clean it up with the brush wheel, which honestly, I didn't have any leaks on it, but while I've got the torch in here, I'm going to go ahead and do it. That way we've got it cleaned up. Once again, that sure looks like three quarters. That right there looks like seven eighths. Clean this one up so you can kind of inspect that one now. You can see that it's pulled in there. I like to have gotten it in further, but with the way they didn't clean it probably as well as they should have. It does not look like it pulled as far back. I would like to see it come back at least half. Technically it should go all the way to the very back. That one there looks pretty good all the way around. Now this one here, as you can see, that's what that looks like. That's what that looks like. You can see that they're had angles. They're not completely in the pocket. So I'm hoping to heat that up and then shove them in closer together and then re-solder it with new braze. We went ahead and re-brazed it. As you can see there, we've got it pulled into the socket. You got to remember, when you're going over somebody else's work, it's really hard to make it look good if that copper wasn't cleaned properly to begin with. That's why sometimes you're better off just to go ahead and remove it all. Now, if you remember, they had quite a goober right here on it. I went ahead and knocked that off as best as possible. Worked a way down to here, pulled all that into the socket, pulled this into the socket. Gotta be careful not to melt your rubber there.  Most important part is it's pulling into the socket. The ring thing, it's debatable. People want to say that that does most of the strength, but the sockets were most of its at. There's where some more of it got knocked off. That looks kind of crappy, but, you know, short of ripping it completely out, was able to straighten that up into the socket far. As I've considered this part here, really wasn't a lot to work with because the angle everything is at. I could only go so far forward, but we're going to go and do a pressure test on it. I about guarantee you it will probably need to replace that TXV. Pressurizing through the high side, it's coming back through, so we know that we did not solder anything shut. We can go ahead and now open up the suction side. Go ahead and get a pressure test on this. Low side, 250. Technically, that's as high as you're supposed to go. This is big blue also, which I use the ZEP bottle, so we buy it in bulk. Looks like it's about ready to start raining, unfortunately. I remember this is where my leak was at originally, because all the oil was out here. This is the worst leak. Now there is also oil inside too. I'm going to get all the valve body, my hoses, all that. Unfortunately, I can hear thunder. May not be able to pull the crazy, crazy deep vacuum with the blue hoses as usual because man, it's not looking very good out there. Look, there's quackers. There's a little camera shy right now. There they are. Anyhow, yep. We're out here in Mila, nowhere. All right, I do not see anything leaking so far. I think that just drizzled. Yeah, just drizzled. Usually you'll see your leak right there on that copper to copper. I usually see it on the other side of the TXV here. That white thing around the side, that's not bubbles. It looks like it, but it's not. See, it doesn't wipe away. It'll leak later, but that's what happens when you have sulfur water. You just want the price that you're going to pay. It's a pretty elaborate system. It's all infinity, it's got a zone system. So it's got the fancier filter, which is out right now because they're expensive.  Yeah, that's great. By the time they're done, it's not built for drywall dust and everything else hitting rim through it. Not good for it. Oh, that's coming in a lot faster than what I thought. So we haven't lost anything on pressure. We're gonna go ahead and get this thing down and get it pulled down as fast as possible. With the old hosy-dosies, I don't think we're gonna go for microns. I think we're gonna go for deep vacuum because we're gonna have a lot of refrigerant in the compressor. We never ran into a negative. So it's not like we've got any moisture in the system. All we've got is refrigerant. Okay, we could use a JV. We could use the kill piece.  I need to get this done as quick as possible. Nine amp hour. Should be charged up ready to go. And we'll pull on the half inch circuit there on the three quarter inch side of the line set and see if we can get this done before the rain hits. Yeah, we're probably about 60 miles from our shop area. It's on it. It's picking up fast. Not good. We got the old blue hose on there. See if we can get this thing going as quickly as possible. The thing bad is I don't recommend living this pump out in the rain because it will probably destroy because it does have electronic circuitry in it. Open gas ballast. Turn it on. It starts up super, super slow. All right, so we've got our liquid line there in and she's cruising. That is not looking very good. Not very good. Don't look very dark on the monitor, but it definitely is. Got the new blue vac here with the Bluetooth. My other one still works perfectly good. But as you can see, we're zooming, zooming down at 2000 already in less than about two minutes or so. Great combination there. True blue hose, blue vac pro, and the Navac pump there, the four CFM. It's a little more money than the two, but I like it because it's a little faster.  Check them out. Usually I'm not a big fan of doing it like this, but as long as you have a TXV, it's not bad. You got a capillary tube and things like that, it can slow it down tremendously. I've had these those since May of 19. These things have been holding up really good. Haven't had to replace really anything. No seals, nothing. It's been really, really good. This thing holds, looks like seven and a half pounds. That's 410A. Should hopefully be down here shortly and we'll get this thing going. We're all zeroed out. Only thing I don't like about doing this one hose method here, unless you put one on your vacuum gauge, because you can't remove the vacuum gauge while it's under a vacuum, is you've gotta bleed it out to the hose, to the ball valve, and then you're gonna have to put some liquid in there, which it's not running, so it's gonna boil off, but you gotta bring the pressure up above, atmospheric pressure, so that you can remove your gauge without sucking something in.  There's about 11 ounces, 12 ounces, 15 ounces. That's good enough to get us out of a vacuum, and now we should be able to remove it. See that? That's how you do it. I know people have asked about that, and it's not gonna hurt that gauge. That is one of the absolute best gauges. I don't care. There is nothing out there better, in my opinion. I don't care who makes it. The BlueVac is the only Micron gauge I've ever had that has lasted more than a year or two. I mean, I have a CPS. I've seen the Testos. I don't like hooking hoses up, because that's just one more leak point. Don't like using manifolds. If we do that, let's bleed. I want it to bleed up to the hose. See, a lot of people leave crap in their hoses, and that just is asking for more non-condensibles, and moisture, and things like that in the system. So now we're gonna charge a remainder of it through the liquid line. That way it can boil off as it goes through the TXV inside the evaporator. That liquid that I dumped in there 12 ounces on a system this big is not gonna hurt nothing. Now, this is boiling off. This does have Bluetooth on it. A couple of little blows there to get the refrigerant out of it, and she's good to go. And if there's any issues with oil, it'll tell ya. It's one of the best Micron gauges out there. That's far none. I still have my other one. It's sitting in the truck, but I wanted the Bluetooth so that I could document stuff, which is the big reason why I got this thing. So we have about four pounds. Now this VNA system here, you go into the thermostat, you tell it how long the line set is, and it'll tell you whether to add or subtract or whatever, and you tell it what size line set you've got, length of line set, all that stuff. They're completely gutting and remodeling this house. So this shingles on the outside, all that crap's gonna get ripped off. It completely, this is an old farmhouse. They literally check the house up, replace the whole basement, and they get ready to rip off all the siding, the roof, all that, completely just build a whole new house from the inside out, which might have ran out of go-go juice. Let's go ahead and go in there and tell it to go into charging mode. Because they're tearing the whole house apart, everything's kind of just out here. So let's go in to see if it's set up. Yeah, we gotta go into the fridge on charging. Charging cooling, line set 15 foot. They already got everything done there. Weighing some pounds of eight ounces. Target sub-coolings 12.13. Start. It's so much easier than a train or any of the other ones that just brain dead. All right, she's starting to kick on. Up she comes. Start charging the rest of this in there slowly. Yeah, that's vapor. Gotta get the last bits of it in there and go grab another can. They're really gonna get four pounds in there. Shoot. Well, why it's doing that. Go grab that real quick. Kind of a cool barn there, 1880s. Got the Amish back here building a barn. Kind of an interesting thing. Yeah, my truck's a mess. Well, we got more refrigerant up there. Okay, put our little gauge back in there where it sleeps. This is where I keep everything so that it's all nice and tidy. Nothing gets lost. Of course, that's pretty good. They had four pounds for our ounces in there. So far, we're running about an 88 degree liquid, 58 suction. We got three additional pounds, so that puts us at five, six, seven. Seven pounds, five ounces, which is dog on close to what it said earlier. Go to sub-cooling, we're at four something. We're gonna give this a good, oh, 10 minutes at least and make sure that that sub-cooling comes up to around 12-ish. So we're in charge mode. Like I said, we're gonna go back in, make sure we've got enough time for this thing to stabilize and make sure what that total weigh-in charge amount was because I don't 100% remember, and it was seven pounds, I think 12 or 11 ounces, don't remember. All right, it's time to warm up. Outdoor temperature, indoor temperature. Outdoor temp, outdoor temp 54. I don't think that's quite some correct. 10-minute stage two. So it's dinking around. We can't really calculate anything just yet. Stabilization time, 24 minutes.  You can tell our sub-cooling started to come up. It's gotta wait for a little bit longer yet. Okay, we may have went just a touch over. So we've got everything up and going. It's been stabilizing now for 15 plus minutes since we checked earlier. You can hear it ramp up. So I need to just take a touch out, but other than that, everything seems to be working good. I gotta go inside and check temperature drop. We adjust the charge of touch right at 12.2. Sub-cooling, it's like 59 degrees there. Looks about 72. Looks like that 59 area was pretty close, so 58. So I got about 13 and a half, 14 degrees. Now granted, you gotta remember, this is an infinity system. So it's in test mode. It's running balls to the wall right now. It's running at high speed, maximum CFM, everything else. When we drop this into traditional normal mode, whether we put it on comfort or efficiency or what have you, it's gonna change that CFM to probably 325, 350-ish area. And it's going to make that nice and cold and dehumidify rather quickly. Everything down here is pretty much already good to go. Air filter, I'm not real thrilled with, but what do you do when you're under construction? Yeah, 1,400 CFM. I have to look and see what tonnage that was. He said he had a code too, some other weird code. I don't know if it was the inverter or what going on, but let's take a look, see what code he had. Warm up to smile, low pressure, humidity sensor fault, DC over voltage, yeah, one time. Stator heater fault, that's a little weird. Maybe it's because it was low on charge. Humidity sensor fault, that's great. All right, so the stator things, the compressor probably getting too hot because it didn't have refrigerant. All right, well, we're gonna put this back to normal. Come on, run it. All right guys, that's gonna wrap this one up. Hopefully enjoyed it. Just a simple leak repair, but it had to be done. And that's how I did it. So if you guys are interested in seeing more videos like this, make sure you check out my channel. You've got a full list of different videos, everything from commercial refrigeration to residential generators, you name it. Till next time, we will catch you guys on the next one. Later.


Welcome back to the channel, today I want to talk about two very quick weapons you can get very early in the game which are pretty good and will last you quite a while, so make sure you hit that like button, subscribe if you're new around here, leave me a comment down below telling me what your favourite weapon type is and let's get into it. So you want to come to Neon which is in the Voli system, which I'll show you where it is now in comparison to where Alpha Centauri is, which is where we start and we're on to Atlantis, so it's just over here to the right of Alpha Centauri, you go down in this corner and enter Voli and then into the planet where Neon is, if you've been through the main quest you'll see exactly where it is, Voli Alpha. This here is where you buy the two weapons and if you're here doing the credit glitch anyway, which is on the channel, so if you want to know how to get ridiculous amounts of credits, which includes this guy, he sells the two weapons, I've already bought them, but he sells the weapons we are talking about, which is the Boom Boom, which has explosive rounds, it randomly switches to it, so it's going to do a lot of damage, but it's a random laser sight, large magazine and high velocity, a very good weapon to have from the start of the game. You will replace it down the line, but it definitely is worth having a look at. Alright, turned out the second weapon sucked, but the Boom Boom is still a pretty goddamn amazing shotgun, so check it out, make sure you get it. So this weapon basically is a spray shotgun, you get up close on them and you unload, each pellet does like six to seven damage on these enemies that I'm shooting on this mission, which have high, high armor because they're literally made out of rocks, where if the explosive bullet rocks randomly you will annihilate half their health, so for most soft-bodied enemies this is going to absolutely tear them apart. So these enemies are typically 20 above me, they could be up to 40 above me I think, as you can see they just disappear, the explosive rounds have such a like a radius on them as well, I actually hit that level 10 then while I was killing the level 45, it's just insane. So we got a level 5 and a level 45 here, packed up together, as soon as the explosive round goes off, they're just both instantly dead, I'll see if I can find a level 65. I couldn't find a 65 but here's another 45, that is insane and I'm like 25, 26 or something as a level 20, how quick does this one die, even from this range it's two shots, two shots of it, I didn't even need to spam it, so if you're ever in an area where you're getting absolutely mauled by things and you've got this gun on, you know granted you don't blow yourself up, the explosive rounds you're going to absolutely annihilate them and yeah that's it, the guns in Crota by suggestion get it, thank you for watching, I've been Izzy and now you guys have been awesome.


Hey guys welcome back to another week of What's for Dinner. My name is Andrea with Food Dementry, Adventures in Food. Our channel is all about the food. We do taste test recipes, grocery hauls, and What's for Dinner. And we are kicking off another week of What's for Dinner by continuing to use of items in our pantry and freezer. So we are having this trainer Joe's chicken chow mein, low-fat, Howard made dinner for us tonight. And so that's the packaging right there of course. And then this is what it looks like on our plates. As you can see, it has broccoli, a bunch of carrots, there's chicken and bell pepper in there. So this is what we are having for dinner tonight and we'll see you guys next time. Hey guys, so I tried out a new recipe tonight using up some of the items that we had on hand in our freezer and pantry. So I will make sure to add the recipe in the description box. But this is sausage, potato, and cabbage soup, which is perfect because it is chili here. And this soup has an amazing flavor. It just calls for cabbage, hot breakfast sausage, cabbage, and chicken broth. And so let me show you what I used. So I used this bone broth from our pantry. And then I needed some extra broth for this soup. So I just had some bouillon in the cabinet and I used that to add some additional chicken broth. And then also from our pantry, something else that we used up is this honey cornbread and muffin mix. And it is from Aldi. Here it is. And here is the corn muffin. So this is what we are having for dinner tonight and probably tomorrow night too because there's a big pot of soup. And we will see you guys next time. Hey guys, so let me show you what we are having for dinner tonight. We are having Dajorno Primo pepperoni pizza. Howard made dinner for us tonight. It's a frozen pizza, of course.  So here it is. Looks delicious. And then we are also having a salad on the side. Here's the salad. You will soon see a grocery haul from the 99 cent store. And this is where this salad came from. It is a Fresh Express chopped Southwest salad kit. And it has cabbage and onions and green onions, jalapeno ranch dressing, Mexican cheeses and blue and yellow and blue tortilla strips. So here it is. This is what it looks like all mixed up together and plated in the bowl. So this is what we are having for dinner tonight. And we'll see you guys next time. Hey guys, so let me show you what we are having for dinner tonight. We are having spaghetti continuing the pantry challenge. So I had some ground beef in my freezer. So we use that. We also had some spaghetti in the pantry as well. And then I wanted to make a dessert for today. So I made a peach cobbler. Here it is. Hot out of the oven. So I like cool whip online. So I do have some cool whip in the freezer. But when I went to the store today to pick up a couple of items, Howard prefers ice cream with his peach cobbler. So I got some blue bell just a pint of ice cream. That's what he likes. And then I saw a new flavor that I've never seen before. Creole cream cheese. And that sounded really good to me. So I'll try it probably not with a pie. I don't like my pie getting really cold and wet. That's why I like cool whip with mine. So this is what we're having for dinner. I was going to make some garlic bread, but I figured with the peach cobbler, you know, that's enough carbs. So I did not make garlic bread. So we're just having the spaghetti. I like my spaghetti with a lot of meat and chunky and lots of tomatoes. So that's what's in there. So this is what we're having for dinner tonight. And we'll see you guys next time. Hey guys, so let me show you what we are having for dinner tonight. We are continuing with the pantry and freezer challenge. We had some boneless skinless chicken thighs in the freezer, two pound package. So Howard and I both seasoned up some chicken thighs the way that we wanted to.  Let me show you this is the barbecue sauce that he used. So he just seasoned them up with dry seasonings. And then he added this on at the end. And so this is what his chicken thighs look like. And then we had some leftover rice and peas that we wanted to use. And then we are also having this fresh express chopped Asian kit, which is right here. We needed to use that it was in the fridge. And this is my plate. I have the same exact thing except for my chicken thigh thighs, I should say I used this. This is Asian steakhouse marinade. It does say for beef, but of course you can use, you know, the marinade for whatever you want. So so mine is Thai pepper garlic. This is something that we had in the pantry that needed to be used. And I forgot to mention also this was something in the pantry that we needed to use. So this is what we are having for dinner tonight. And we'll see you guys next time.


So this is a game, Meeple Circus that I heard. I don't know when I first heard about it because it's pretty new. Like it's weird. It feels like the term Meeple Circus like is just like the first time I heard it. It didn't feel new. It felt like there's always been a Meeple Circus. Yeah. The Meeple Circus of every tabletop game ever because pretty much anyone who plays tabletop games.     That's just what you naturally do. Meeple Circus. The actual game does. If you've ever played settlers, you know exactly how high you can stack all your pieces. Right.  Now there are official game. It's not like a thing you do while you're bored. Now there are a lot of tabletop games like via Palletti or Jenga or Rhino Hero that involve some sort of stacking component and lots of construction games and destruction games. We reviewed many of them on Geeknice and a lot of them have similar problems. The one problem being well one person knocks it down. Does everyone else win? That's kind of lame. Or one person knocks it down via Palletti and now we have a really hamfisted and kind of crappy scoring mechanism to determine who won that really removes the skill component. So Meeple Circus is one of the rare stacking pieces games that has a pretty legit win condition and is about your skill of stacking and doesn't seem to have a very low skill cap because many of the games that try to solve this problem end up having such a low skill cap that over the course of a packs everyone in our group is playing perfectly in the game because it's boring. So pretty much how it works is the app. It's an app controlled game. But the app does not actually do much. The app is mostly a timer. It just plays a song. Yeah. It's a timer with a circus song. It plays the did it did it did it did it song. So the circus has three acts right and in the first act you got a pretty simple circus. You don't have a lot of pieces to work with. And you know you build a little everyone is simultaneously making you know it's like it's like the timer starts and has to build their circus and you're trying to arrange the Meeple's in such a way according to the rules that they are worth the most points for you. For example there might be bonus points for putting a purple guy on top or something right or like you get you get a red guy that you have a measuring stick for how high is your red guy off the ground. And some guys can't be on the ground or they don't get points. Some guys can't be under another guy. Yeah.  Each Meeple has different rules. There's camels and elephants and sticks and balls and barrels and all sorts of like the strong man is a strong man. There's a there's this generic acrobats all kinds of different Meeple's they all do different things. You want to stack them in different ways.  You do round two which is pretty similar to round one only now everyone has even more Meeple's and it gets a little crazy as you're doing this draft mechanic where you know what's likely to like what the scoring things are like what will be scored. And then you're sort of drafting to collect pieces like I'll take this card that gives me to the blue guys and an elephant. Yep. So you do round two. It's the second act of the circus and then the third act of the circus.  And the third act of the circus. Everyone goes individually one at a time not simultaneously. And while you're doing this not only do you have to construct something according to the same rules and get the most points. Not only do you have even more Meeple's than before but you have to do some sort of performance aspect. Right. For example what was one of them where you say like hop every time that you place a certain thing or something. So basically in the first two rounds everyone builds a thing simultaneously when the timer runs out whatever's standing that's what gets scored. But then in the third one you all take turns being the audience and they'll end like the person of a rule like clap your hands every time you place a piece. So I place it please clap my hands actually do a performance for the third act of the circus. And that gets you points if you succeed at it. If you if you miss up clapping once is why the other people aren't doing it simultaneously. They're judging your clapping. They're like you have to be clapped. Nope. She didn't clap. No. The good news is they're all objective things. There's no ambiguity. They're very well written. You're not going to be able to like unfair. You're never going to have a question of like was that a clap. It's like no it's pretty clear. The most fun part of that piece of the game is that one everyone people tend to choke in that part. And that's just really funny to watch one shot. You still got the timer.  Everyone's looking at you. Yep. When I mess up in the first round don't really notice this because they're busy with their own crap and you're performing right. It's like it's like more circus role playing even though you're still just stacking meeples together. But to you don't say anything if you're in the audience if the person messes up their performance like if they forget to clap once I can roll play the audience. No. No. The audience just be quiet. Don't let them know. So they keep doing it. Not realizing that they failed long ago. Oh no. But I could I could just boo with their bad circus. Oh yeah. I'm not satisfied.  And if Dumbled comes out yeah. So the game was set up in the first look area at PAX which is a pretty good area in general. It's kind of an aside but I think it's worth it to talk about an area that was created at unplugged and we scooped up some games from Essent like board games that aren't like published widely in the US yet the kind of games you can't get at your game store. There's only a few copies so far like preview copies stuff like that games that are like the newest newest hotness. They're not going to be in the library. No one's going to bring them to PAX. These are like the only copies you're going to see for like maybe another few months before they come out in the game store and here they are at PAX. They're set up already on tables where they have a permanent home. You sit down and play them when no one else is playing a minute and unplugged. These games were highly trafficked in a very visible area. You couldn't sit down to play any of them because everyone was board game fans playing them all the time. But at PAX they were in the back and hidden and no one noticed them or cared about them and they weren't on the printed books in the map or anything. So you could totally go over there if you knew what was what and play them to your heart's content. So I really like Meeple Circus and I think a lot of people would probably enjoy it and should buy it. But I don't think it's a game that I would buy myself. The few problems I see with it based on talking to people who have played it a much more are people who are saying forcers observing people playing this game over the course of an entire PAX is that if you play this game more than occasionally you can pretty much get to the point of perfectly stacking every time and I played the game one time and I got the maximum points available to me based on the cards that were available in the game. I could not have gotten any more points than I was gotten and it reminds me actually a lot in that way with potion explosion. Yup. And potion explosion is a game with a fun gimmick is marble machine and Meeple Circus is a fun gimmick and app and stacking all kinds of cool meeples. But there's a way the scoring mechanism works is the maximum score you can get and you either hit the maximum or you don't and potion explosion it's two potions a turn and in Meeple Circus is just all your meeples stacked correctly. What did you draft and what gets scored. Yep. So as long as your stacking skill is up to snuff and you're not a small child or someone you know who can't stack meeples for some reason you're going to get the maximum points and the game comes down to the drafting part. So it's just the drafting part. And I think you know on the one hand that reduces the replay value of Meeple Circus itself. But on the other hand I don't think the game is actually a problem. I think the problem is simply that the game needs more pieces to make it harder. It needs an expansion or something to where it's like all right no no no. Literally you're going to have so many meeples and so many things going on that are so ridiculous. You cannot score maximum points you know. But you got to calculate what the best you think you can do is and then it's like all right. This is the best I think I can do. But I could get one more guy standing on a ball. Do I go for it or not. You know me know the app is going like we've all been watching the Olympics lately you know the figures in all that. So think of it if the game had a little more components it has this aspect now just this aspect breaks down among skilled players that you choose how ambitious you want to be. And you can if you increase your maximum score by trying something that's very difficult that might pan out or you might knock it down at the last second and score nothing. Yep. So if you added a few more pieces I think you could extend that feeling. The game needs to give you more pieces and more scoring mechanisms to the point at which nobody can possibly get the maximum score possible with their own meeples unless they're a God of perfect balance and that right. Plus you know the imperfections of the meeples themselves and the table you're playing on and all that right comes into play such that you have to figure out how much you're going to risk. Are you going to go for that crazy move where you get four perfectly round things all stacked on each other or not. Are you going to go for it. How high do you want to put a stick vertically which you're not allowed to do actually but you know just to get your red guy even higher you're going to put another elephant up at the top. So there is one problem with the game. Wait a minute. I'm looking at the back of the box. I think it shows a stick vertical. It totally does. There's a vertical stick. I think there was a rule that there's like pieces had to be played in a certain way. So this is a problem with the game. The rules as they are in the printing that we had access to. Oh they're not real well written enough. Are ambiguous to the point that they are unusable. And we had to make a lot of value judgments as to how pieces could actually be played. Can I lay this elephant on a side but about upside down. Can I put the stick vertically. People's people who taught us the game said things were not allowed that are clearly drawn on the back of the box. So that is a problem. And I don't know if there's official or anything yet. We didn't look into that. We kind of just didn't care. Yeah. It's not. It's not a game that's so serious that it's worth your time to look into that. But yeah there are some questions like can an elephant be laying on its side or does it have to be standing up. It can definitely be on its head or standing up but can it be on its side. I don't know. I put my camel's humps down. Oh yeah. The pieces are well designed though in that they're mostly capable of similar equivalent scores. Yeah. There's like a highly varied in interesting collection of different kinds of meeples that have interesting shapes. Like you know you set a camel up. It's like OK you got this round ball that will roll around. You just put a camel and put the ball between its humps and then you get a guy standing on that.  Right.  Now the game does have an app and it's sort of required. But all the app does. The only thing it does is play the timer of how long you have on your turn. But the circus music is essential. It plays some did it did it style circus music. And it has. Now it has some symbols like and they'll come in in different intervals to sort of tell you when you're running out of time. But I will admit I actually would have preferred to just have a countdown timer telling me exactly how many seconds I had left because I didn't play the game enough times to internalize what the like everyone seemed to be very worried time would run out. And I think part of it was that we were keeping the app off to the side. We should have put the app front and center on the table so it could be more visible. True. True. But still the app gives you a lot more time than you think.  I was never. I played you know somewhat hurriedly not super rushed. But I always came in under the clock. It was never at least not as I maybe I'm remembering wrong because my memory is awful. But I don't remember one time I knocked my thing over and I couldn't rebuild the entire thing in time before the time ran out. Yeah. But you could still build how just get as many points as you can. I built something. Yeah. Wasn't great. No. But I feel like I don't know if I want to own this game because I own a lot of games and I don't know how much play it would get if I tried to play a lot. I feel like this is kind of game where it's like if someone else busted out I'll play it if there's an expansion. I definitely want to play it again for sure. I want to see expansion that it adds a round where you have to do a dexterity like flick kind of thing. But yeah. I feel like if I bought it it wouldn't get played really very much at all. But the one case where I would buy it is if I was in some sort of family situation with small children or anyone who is below a school any situation where you can have a lot of players who are below the skill cap who will not get perfect you know stacking every time. Like if I hosted game nights for like different people on a regular basis as opposed to just like our local friends I would probably have this and bust it out.  So as long as you keep playing it with different people all the time you definitely want to you know get a copy because it does make a spectacle. It's definitely got to go into a gaming library. It's got to go to convention. It's got to go to school. It's got to go at a meet up. If you set this up somewhere like in the middle of a like mid-tier convention or like a meet up or something it'll gather a crowd of people who will just want to watch. Like it and people who want to play it like one two three times. Yep. You know some children might get hooked on it and keep playing but I think adults will play a few times and be done. Yeah I met some people at PAX who had played it to the point that they had completely ruined it and there was no further replay value at all. But I think an expansion that's complex enough could make it fun for quite a while. I feel like one. Especially if you added in stuff like you just said like the flicking mode. One like flick like round one do a stack round to do a trick round three do a stack round for the performance that involves a stack and a dexterity move. Right. So I think I think the way you do it.  But with a stack your trick is going to mess up your thing. Right. Yep. Or do it separately. It's like OK you have to make a stack and you have to set up a trick and execute the trick separately. Like OK I'll make a seesaw here and flick a guy and he has to you know I'll make a human cannonball over here and get a guy to hit another guy. Good. I did it. And I'll make my stack something like that. Yeah. I don't know. At least as it is despite its minor flaws in terms of add like another act to the circus and that's the act you do a trick. So it's like stack trick and act to and then act three. You know I don't know because the game the game took a while to play. But a lot of that was debates over what was legal placement. Oh yeah. Again to the poorly not take long at all because rounds one and two are completely simultaneous. So no matter how many players you have round one and two will always take the same amount of time which is less than 15 minutes if you include the scoring. And then the round three is going to increase linearly based on how many players you have. But it only goes up to how many players five maybe two to five. Yeah. So if you have five players you know it takes maybe what it's going to take you another I don't know 30 minutes at the most people this game under an hour with five players. I people at PAX explicitly said they do this. If they have a four player game two of the people will do their performances in the third round simultaneously. And each one has a judge and then they swap that'll speed things up and literally cut the time in half. But you will you will lose the enjoyment of seeing everyone's performance. Yep. But you do not need the app. That is one thing to make clear. The app is just a timer XCOM. You need the app. You do not need it in Meeple Circus. When I sat down probably want to use I sat down at the table. I was like I want to play this game. And then the guy who's going to teach us is like all right you have the app. And immediately I was like maybe I don't want to play this. But then he was like no no no. It's just a timer. Yep. You don't actually need it. But yeah it's a pretty good game. There's a lot of people who probably should buy it. It's not one. I did the most thing. I just can't believe no one did this earlier. I know right. It's like well there's not already exist. I feel like there are a lot of Americana style board games that do this in a very simple. I'm talking about this specific thing of make a game out of the fact that everyone stacks Meeple's all the time. Yeah. Everyone does this thing. Maybe we should make a game out of it. The right way. Why did Meeple's I've been stacking Meeple's since 2000. Oh something. Why did it take until 2001. One seven for this game to come out. But if any of you do have it and you bring it to a pass I'll probably play it at least once. Yeah I'd play like once you know at a convention. This has been Geek Nights with Rima and Scott special thanks to DJ Pretzel for the opening music Cat Lee for web design and brand OK for the logos. Be sure to visit our website at front row crew dot com for show notes discussion news and more. Remember Geek Nights is not one but four different shows. SciTech Mondays gaming Tuesdays and McComick Wednesdays and indiscriminate Thursdays. Geek Nights is distributed under a Creative Commons attribution 3.0 license. Geek Nights is recorded live with no studio and no audience. But unlike those other late shows it's actually recorded at night.


Welcome to our Fresh Week of the Rundown. This week, CMP announced a new suicide prevention program. SECDEF will host its second Worldwide Troop Talk, and there's a nav admin to remind you to register to vote. The 21st Entry Sailor Office has rolled out a new suicide prevention program called Sailor Assistance and Intercept for Life, or CEL. The CEL program will be an additional resource to supplement mental health treatment. Through CEL, Fleet and Family Support Center counselors will maintain contact with the sailor for 90 days if the sailor exhibits suicidal behavior. This is a voluntary program that is designed to help sailors manage stress by encouraging healthy behavior. The program has started in the Pacific Northwest region first. With the expectation, it will be Navy-wide by next summer. For more information on CEL, read our story on navy.mil. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will be hosting his second Worldwide Troop Talk September 21st at 1100. SECDEF plans to talk on the force of the future and how the DOD plans to bring in the best and brightest and incorporate the latest technology. You can tune in to watch SECDEF's speech live at www.defense.gov. The Navy is again reminding you to register to vote for our nation's next president. To register to vote or request an absentee ballot, visit www.fvap.gov. The homepage provides online assistance and important dates regarding upcoming elections. Read Navadman 204-16 for additional information. Finally, the Navy wants you to update your personal and family information in the Navy Family Accountability and Assessment System, or NFAS. NFAS is a system that allows the Navy to account for personnel and family members during times of need. Updating your information in search personnel can be accounted for quickly and accurately. Navy and civilian personnel should complete the update no later than October 1st. To update, visit the NFAS site at www.navyfamily.navy.mil. Log in and update member information under the My Info tab. Also, check out Navadman 200-16 for more information on the NFAS update. Well, that's all for this week. For any questions, send us a message at usnpeopleatgmail.com. For the Chief of Naval Personnel, I'm MC2 L.J. Burleson. Thanks for watching.