I'm Scott, I'm Russell, I'm Leo, this is Spitball.
Welcome to Spitball where three board game bros and a guest empty our heads of startup
and tech product ideas that we have stuck up in there so you can all have them for free.
Anything that we say is yours to keep.
And this week I have the delight of bringing our guest.
This week we have our good friend, Ryan.
Ryan has been a longtime friend of all three of ours.
Ryan is a gaming aficionado more than anyone else
in my life.
Board games, card games, video.
This man is a ranked Melee player.
I don't know if that's still true,
but you've definitely won tournaments before.
You're a world traveler and a summer boarder
and a teacher in a past life.
We are so excited to have you here.
Ryan, welcome to Spitball.
Hey, thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be here.
This is going to be a great time.
All right, this week to get us started,
I have a game that I'm going to call High Stakes.
So in this one, I was looking through like Board Game Geek
and other research about board games and card games.
I don't know a ton about that world.
I'm not very good at learning new games,
as Ryan will attest.
But some of these games, especially the indie stuff,
have wacky names.
So in this game, I'm going to give you a name.
And you have to tell me if it's either a board or card game
or a strain of cannabis.
So if I said, for example, herbaceous.
Is herbaceous a card or board game?
You would all say, of course, that's a card game.
It's a casual card game where players collect herbs
and stuff from their communal garden.
I'm sure Ryan--
- I own that one.
- Yeah, I figured you would.
This is gonna be a good time.
- Ryan, how many board games do you own?
- How many board games?
Right around 900.
- 900.
- Yeah.
850 and a lot of them are print and play right that's so cool Wow
Almost four digits. That's why I wrote this game for you. I think you're gonna know every one of these so let's kick it off
with you Ryan
splendor card game board game or
Definitely board game. Yeah, it's a gem trading engine building game. You knew that it's actually a game
You know that I know that one. Yeah. Oh nice
Scott nine pound hammer. Oh, it's definitely a strong indica. It's exactly
No, we're not gonna incriminate it's still federally right and I'm gonna be good at this for different reasons
Russell train wreck all one word. It sounds that's weed. Yeah legendary sativa dominant hybrid
Very good sounds like weed
Ryan spirit Island definitely a board game. Yes. It is cooperative strategy. Have you heard of that one popular co-op? Yeah?
Maybe this is gonna be super easy Scott forbidden fruit
I'm gonna guess board game on that one indica dominant strain famous for deep purple buds
The forbidden series is like a great set of I don't like I heard that forbidden Island
Well, they don't have forbidden fruit yet. I
Did some searching to make sure none of these were in both categories and I actually had to rule a couple of them out. Yeah
Russell
Wingspan all one word. It's got that's gotta be a board game plane plane board game like a plane
It is but it's for bird enthusiasts themed. Yeah attracting birds to wildlife preserves
It is crazy how many people have gotten into orthology for that one?
We I've definitely played that one either at a manuary maybe or at Scott's.
Yeah.
Oh, excellent.
One more time through Ryan.
Golden goat.
That's gotta be weed.
It is very good.
Happy uplifted hybrid strain.
Scott Everdell.
That's gotta be a board game.
Why do you know that?
It is a board game.
Stunning worker placement game set of Valley of Woodland Creatures and Russell
Scythe. S-C-Y-T-H-E. I can't imagine like you oh yeah you want to smoke some scythe?
I'm gonna guess some board game. Excellent very good. Engine building area
control game set in 1920s Europe. Well dang that was apparently way too easy
and I wouldn't have known any of those. I think everyone except for one of them
they were all right. Well done everybody. Who wants to kick us off this week? I
can go this week. Do it. What do you got for us this week? All right half-baked idea
that I think I'm gonna win one of the awards at the end of the series for this
one. Heck yeah. Mostly out of... You mean a Spitball award, right? Yes, a Spitball
award for most likely to get you hurt. The best guide. Okay. I've been striving for that
one ever since Russell took it last year. I recently learned my mom has bad
insomnia. She will sleep for a couple of hours but then always at like 2-3
a.m. just wakes up and cannot go back to sleep and that has been
plaguing her for a long time now.
And, but I also learned that driving really puts her to sleep in any form
where if I am behind the wheel of a car, I immediately just want to conk out.
How can we use one to solve the other is my question tonight.
Can we create some kind of VR driving simulator or something to just put out
a person who can't sleep and your goal is just to make it X miles
on here before passing out.
You want to Pavlov people into getting used to trying to fall asleep at the wheel.
Yes.
Hence why this probably is going to get me sued at some point.
Oh, excellent.
Okay.
Well, whatever puts you to sleep.
All right.
You know what I mean?
Whatever works.
Taylor Tomlinson had this, this happens to me sometimes.
I just cannot fall asleep.
And she has this whole sketch about how, when you can't fall asleep,
She would always ask audience members, do you have any ideas to help?
Cause I've heard it all.
I've read it all.
And the only one that's ever stuck with her, and I swear to God, this works is.
Uh, you can't sleep, go lay in your bathroom floor for like 10 minutes,
just lie down and that's it.
And then go back into your bed and you will pass out.
And from what I understand, it's like, you're just on an uncomfortable spot,
an uncomfortable, cold, hard floor.
And you make it back to your bed.
You're like, oh my God, this is amazing.
It works every time.
That one still doesn't work for my mom though.
so let's go back to some driving.
-She falls asleep while driving, not in the passenger seat or something.
-Correct. -Any of that.
-Physically driving, you just instinctively want to go to sleep.
-Okay. -I get that.
I definitely get the highway drowsiness for sure.
-Same.
-I've never thought of weaponizing it.
[laughter]
-Utilizing it, not weaponizing it.
-Yes. -It all depends if you're on the road or not.
-You're thinking what, like a VR headset and it gradually gets darker,
so you're like--
[laughter]
(laughing)
It's forcing you to sleep.
- Yeah, and then put it in a recliner.
That'll just automatically tip you back when you're done.
- You fall asleep with it on.
Eight hours later, you got the red raccoon face.
Yeah, right.
- All right, I'm gonna go the expensive route.
You know those giant sleep pods that they have
with those cool startup places?
They're like giant eggs.
You just put the right sound machine, right?
And maybe a little projector.
You buy one of those and you get a projector
sound machine and it just, it's like that brown hum,
that's brown noise hum or whatever,
on top of this like, you know, flashing lights
and like the little bit of the wobble, you know,
you gotta somehow create that experience.
- Rocking it asleep.
- Yeah, it's something about like holding yourself up
that you're just like, all right, I like this, right?
Something's keeping you, I think you need a little bit
of that, right, somehow, like a wobble board
on top of an egg.
And I'm just like, oh man.
- Yes, and I almost wonder if it's the fact
that I can't go to sleep right now
is the reason why you're so tired
and you wanna go to sleep.
- Yeah.
- Is that, how do we--
- Reverse psychology there.
- Could you, (laughs)
it's gonna sound crazy.
Could you just go in your car?
(laughs)
- And sleep.
(laughs)
- Drive to McDonald's.
- You have a screen in front of your car in the garage
that shows a highway on a loop.
- A projector, right?
- Just get a Tesla, man.
Actually drive, and it'll just transfer over
into self-driving mode and bring you back home.
- The only way I can fall asleep is pretending
I'm eight years old in the backseat of my self-driving car.
- Yeah, you don't wanna turn your car on by accident either
while you're in the garage.
That's a bad, right?
- Yeah, I think being in the car is just one step too close
to being too familiar with that space, you know?
This whole idea is one step too close.
The next time you're just driving to work the next day,
you're going to conk out.
Well, maybe it's quite the opposite.
Maybe, because you're so rested during the--
you know?
If you're up at 2 AM, and you're now driving to work,
and you're tired, maybe it's that.
It's the trip home that is dangerous.
That's the reason why.
Yep.
The end of the day one.
I would love this for my kids.
If you could somehow figure out how to--
Every child I think that I know can fall asleep in a car
or fall asleep better in a car.
- I was just thinking, how does the car sleeping thing get,
yeah, sold to parents?
Yeah.
- Dude, like all kids' car seats
have a little bit of a rocker in them.
I don't know if you could create
like an adult-sized version of that.
(laughing)
Okay?
And like a little bit of a,
buckled in, and all of a sudden it just,
(imitates car engine revving)
just the sound of a car,
dark,
Go in your basement, just like rocking.
- Ah, that sounds fun.
- It sounds like something everybody would have fun.
- I want to try this now.
- Oh, what about like those swings?
You can create a fully enclosed space
with like a hammock, like one of those hammocks
or those swings.
- Yeah, they're those like zero gravity chairs
or whatever, right?
They're kind of a swing.
- And a blinker to it.
- Uh-huh, uh-huh.
So how does this work?
You've got, you're proposing attaching
some sort of steering column to the swing.
-I don't know if the steering-- Well, I don't know.
Is the arms being upright on the steering wheel important?
I think it's the sound, the movement, and the--
-The trying not to go to sleep.
-Yes, I don't know.
I think there's an element of some focus there too, right?
-Yes.
-Something you need enough awareness of, but--
-That makes so much sense actually, because when you're tired driving,
It's like you can't not think about,
like when you get starting to get tired,
you're focused on one thing.
You can't think about all the other life stuff, right?
So you're like, I gotta just stay in the lane.
And then it's like the only thing that's keeping you awake.
I need anxiety in order to keep me awake, right?
(laughing)
- The fear of crashing.
- Yeah, or maybe like the other way around,
to keep you awake while driving,
is it just has a loop of all your anxiety
that plays on the radio?
Like if you're on your day, so you never.
So now--
Your mother never loved you.
Yeah, psychological warfare, OK.
Because we've got to solve the problem of when you're actually
driving.
So you save all the anxiety or the thoughts
for when you're driving.
You put in a tape.
And then--
Put in a tape.
Got to cardio again.
Start going away with this.
So you have a positive one for sleeping
that'll help you sleep and a negative one
that keeps you awake.
Exactly.
You just record yourself saying all the things
that's on your mind and then you play it
while you're driving so you can sleep
because you just recorded it.
You're saving that for later.
You know what I mean?
You're just, "All right, I'm gonna save this for later."
(laughing)
While you strap into your VR headset and--
- Right, yeah, right.
- Your chair.
- I don't know about this one, bro.
(laughing)
- All right, I'm spitballing way off of my field.
You know, this is--
- That's why we're here, man.
I wonder if there's some kind of other task that's a lot simpler than operating a motor vehicle
that still requires concentration, that still is boring enough that like,
"Hey, I just naturally want to go to sleep."
Working on an assembly line.
Yeah, or even simpler than that.
Like, I need to just look at something that will balance something on top of something else.
Just by staring at it and focusing, it'll keep it balanced.
It's the modernized counting sheep.
Yeah, exactly.
Sort something between red and blue piles or whatever, right?
Yeah
You just put like you just put like a bunch of cartoon animals you can count and it doesn't have to be fast-paced or anything
Right, you can just like have it slow or focus on this one thing the whole time and there's a lot of other stuff going
On you can build a projector and just put this on the ceiling above your bed and you're just focused on that
It's that way you're not staring at a screen. Yeah, that's a good point. You got the screen involved
How do you get the screen out of this and make it analog?
Hmm.
Like a mechanical device, right?
Like what, whatever you're projecting, like, sure.
Cause like red lights or the, you know, the orange lights or they say it's better,
but you could go blue light at first and then it slowly, what is it?
The app that like turns things yellow over time.
Flux flux.
And then it just slowly turns to black.
That might stress me out more.
I'm noticing it.
It's turning black.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
All right.
Not that part.
Yeah.
There's back when we did vital sleep headband, I learned that there's a way
that you can tell if you're in a REM cycle by just like behind your ear.
There's like a certain pressure or something on there that a sensor can
tell that you are in a REM cycle or not.
And we were trying to use this for.
Uh, this headband design we were working on, but like, I wonder if you could
also have another piece of hardware on there and it incorporates, Hey, are you
asleep yet?
I guess your smartwatch can tell you that now too, though.
I was thinking about a VR headset that slowly fed you Benadryl over time.
[laughter]
Puts me into a medical-induced coma.
Don't even need the Benadryl, man. Just take an IV. Just knock him out.
Just take an IV. Yeah.
Guys, we solved it. We did it.
[laughter]
It's the opposite of an EpiPen.
You don't need an anesthesiologist. You just need Benadryl.
All right, Russell, what do you got this week?
All right, so in honor of Valentine's Day coming out
in the next couple of days, or whenever this comes out,
I have a special love corner that I've been saving.
Yeah!
Cue the music!
- All right, what do we got? - That's right.
- Let's hear it.
- So-- - It's been a minute.
- Yeah, it's been a minute because I came up
with this Love Corner idea November 7th of 2024, okay?
- All right.
- This is when it was logged.
And I think it ruined all my other Love Corner ideas
because this dating app.
So you have one, it's the last dating app
you'll ever need to download.
Because in this dating app,
you have all the different variations
of dating app available to you.
And you can pick and choose and run through
all these dating apps that the community creates and adds.
Right?
So for example, you have Farmers Only,
you have Christian Mingle, you have Coffee Meets Bagel,
all those different apps as templates
or themes that you can just pick and choose from
and you're just going through the dating pool
through those different versions, right?
So, I don't know, people who love rice.
Maybe somebody could make that one.
And literally, part of the app is making your own version
of like your own dating app.
- A dating app.
It's like an algorithm marketplace.
Oh.
- That's right.
And you can come up with like different questions
need to be answered or.
- Uh-huh.
- Pictures or like your style or whatever makes sense.
That's all built in.
But now what's cool about this is there's a lot of people
that just go through the Tinder pool,
they think they suck and then they move on
and they just think, "Ah, online dating isn't for me."
And then they never date anybody, right, ever again.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- This would give them more opportunities
to figure out what makes them work.
And it's, I think, I don't know much about dating apps,
but like you're churning through the same pool of people.
Right?
And then at some point you get new people
that have never been on the dating app join in
and now everybody's like sharks to the feed, right?
Oh, 30 people just joined.
Swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe.
And now you're just like fresh meat, right?
I don't know, but like now-
- That's what they love to be called.
- Right?
I guess like-
- Ladies love being fresh meat.
- I guess that's it.
- You're integrated with these other apps then?
- Yeah, that's the part I don't understand.
Am I pulling from Tinder and Bumble and stuff?
- You are the Walmart Bumble.
- I got it, I'm with you, buddy.
This is like Roblox or whatever.
It's like a game creator.
This is a, I go to the app
and I can either be a participant in a pool
or make my own pool.
Like on here, I'm making my own,
knock off of farmers only.
And here's the three questions I ask
everyone who's joining my league, my pool,
my whatever, contenders.
but you can be part of dozens of them in this one app.
In one app.
Yeah, you can be--
Yeah.
Got it.
And it's like a competition of marketplaces of, wow,
that algorithm is the number one on the leaderboard this week
because it matched so many more people than everyone else.
Oh, I like that.
Yeah, you're commoditizing the thing.
This is great.
Just different subreddits of I can date.
I can pick on this one.
I can want to date through this one.
Whoa.
But the fact that you can have like your entrance questions,
your form questions and stuff that are what you need to,
and then you customize the algorithm, oh, that's great.
- I think too, it gives you like multiple chances
with the same person.
I don't know if like, you see the part,
like maybe when you're swiping on Tinder,
they don't look as good as they look on,
I don't know, like on the other apps.
- It's the same profile on everyone, man.
- They use the same images, right?
- Okay, yeah.
Well, maybe that's what part of the app has to do.
Like, that's where the marketplace will figure itself out.
- It modifies your images.
So in this one, I'm holding a bowl of rice.
- Rights, yes.
- This one's bass.
This one is a farmer's hoe.
(laughing)
Like American Gothic.
- I guess I'm thinking like stupid niche ones,
like the office fan, super fans, right?
and you have to pick,
sure you pick your one profile picture,
but then you have to explain who you're like,
what's your favorite episode and all that stuff.
All right, yeah, your picture looks ugly,
but you have the exact same quote and same episode as me.
Maybe I'll give you a chance.
Maybe I'll send you that message this time.
- So would you have some like staples
or some way to bring information from one over to the other?
Right, like tie it to your profile
so it's easier to like load in that stuff
because maybe, you know,
you'll have all these different communities
but you'll probably have some core questions
that come up in each one.
- Yeah, you almost want to have like the app
moderates a question bank
and these different subreddit equivalents,
these dating pools can like submit extra questions
to the question bank that then can be pulled
by the other ones too, right?
- You have suggested ones.
- That's cool.
I went on a date recently with, I'm trying to think,
could this be a filter on here?
But it was a girl who was just like,
I will not go on a date with anyone
unless they can tell me where they were during 9/11.
What? - What?
- She's like, it's just a good filter question
and it works every time.
Like, works for what? - Did you have an answer?
- Yeah, I remember where I was during 9/11.
- Yeah, who doesn't?
I guess it is a good question, isn't it?
What kind of psychopath?
- People that weren't born yet,
but kind of that age now.
- I mean, it's part of the filter.
(laughing)
- Oh yeah. - Part of the filter.
right that would be the whole concept can you imagine the 9/11 maker oh yeah
does it just let you into the different dating pools or like do I have to name
is there a quiz I have to take about the office before I get in like there was
one girl when date was she's like I won't date anyone unless they can name
all the planets in order yes like yeah just means you know they like stars and
astrology the why not Scott that's a good the algorithm could be that right
you you ask a question like which of these was not a character on friends or
whatever and then your algorithm can be if they pick the three wrong ones or
or whatever, then they're matched with nobody.
They get like black holes, shadow band.
- It doesn't tell them though, shadow band.
I really like that.
- But that's the flexibility you're saying, I like it.
- I think the app would try to hopefully encourage
for unique profile pics too, or like every single time.
That makes, that's, I think important,
is creating variety every time you open the app
for the people that aren't killing it.
You know what I mean?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like each time you just have to take a selfie every time you log in or whatever?
I don't know. Maybe it just can't be one that's already uploaded. Maybe you have to or something like that, right?
You could create that permission maybe in your in your version of your algorithm
Yeah, every every like week or something that you have to change it or it goes neutral
So then you can filter people out that haven't been keeping up. Mm-hmm
Yeah, I just have some friends that are so hesitant to join certain dating apps and you don't like all these other dating apps
Are like too small. There's why why I do their dating app, right?
And so you add all the super niches in one super app
So now you can just jump that way you don't have to like download the third or the tenth
Dating app that doesn't even have a big pool of people you just use this one
What do you call it? Oh, I don't know shuffle right? That sounds good shuffle. Honestly good
Was that off the cuff?
Good
Firing from the hip I like shuffle shuffle it up. We bet on shuffle
It was uh, it was a niche thing about the fetish
He was into rice I was into the office
- Office, I don't know, just match the...
(synthesizer music)
- Hey Ryan, what do you have for us this week?
- Maybe.
- All right. - Nailed it.
- Well at some point, I'm gonna come back,
I've got a dangerous one that I've been sitting on
for since I was like a kid.
(laughs)
- Ooh, dangerous?
- It's been waiting.
- But one that was, I don't know,
I've been thinking about a lot lately,
was, so on board Game Geek,
they, I recently learned about these things
called math trades, which are,
it's basically you get a bunch of people
and you can set various parameters for it,
but you all fill out and say,
hey, these are all the games that I wanna trade.
And you all dump them into one giant list
with 6,000 games, whatever.
And then you go through and pick all the games
that you're interested in.
And then the program finds the maximum amount of trades
that can happen, but like trade chains.
So if I have something Russell wants,
but he has something Leo wants,
and Leo has got something Scott wants,
like we can all make a little chain.
So I'm still giving this thing up to Russell,
but I'm getting the thing I want from Scott
and everybody ends up happy.
It's genius.
And I love the idea.
I did it for the first time recently.
I got a couple hits.
I mean, a game that I paid basically nothing for
and got a $30 game back.
And the top of my list I got, it was awesome.
- That is such a good idea.
- It's so cool.
And I would love this for other contexts.
I'm thinking, I don't know,
your local Facebook group or something.
And I do a lot of thrift shopping
and I see how much stuff gets sent to the dump
from the end of the line from Goodwill.
And I just love the idea of stuff getting reused.
And it's like, oh, I'm done with this, but it's still good.
You can go through selling it,
but then you're gonna use that money to buy something else.
And if, I don't know, if you can work out some trades,
that's kind of as far as I've gotten,
but it's something you run once a month or something.
- Enter items into this app, assign a value to it,
and then it finds, you have your list of these are things
that I want, and then it'll just automatically find,
hey, this thing that worth this value
is gonna get you these other things over here.
Print shipping labels for everyone automatically,
and you just pop it in the mail.
- And the thing on BoardGameGeek,
it's got a lot of great information
and a lot of cool features, ugly as can be,
but it is so, like it's very functional.
So you can do things like assign weights to your items.
It doesn't not affect trade priority.
So it's like, if you can make these trades with it,
you know, if you'd rather have this item than that,
like tough bits, it's a yes or no,
but it's for your own sorting.
And then you can do the same thing in your wants list
and say, oh, I value this game at, you know,
about $50 and that, and then you can click the button
and it'll just auto fill the check, the grid.
It's a whole grid if you say this game for that
and click check boxes.
- Is that what prompts you, weekly or monthly,
or just after you do this one time?
- No, so there, yeah.
The first one I did that just ended
was an East Coast one.
So it was to minimize shipping costs,
'cause if you get paired with somebody in Seattle
and you're down in Florida,
the shipping cost is gonna be way different
than if it's somebody nearby.
But the way that they run it was,
you've got a week to submit your games.
There's a bunch of rules, you know, make sure that you're listing component condition, box condition, like everything, so people know exactly what they're getting.
And then during that week, you can sit and go through the list as it gets refreshed and updated and, you know, mark your wants or whatever.
But then after a week, it closes and you cannot submit anymore.
And now there's another week where you can finalize your selections and whatever else.
and then they just run it at the end and tell you if you got a trade
or multiple trades and you just go through with it.
-God, before streaming services, this would have just been perfect for DVDs.
-Oh, wow, yes.
-I have this and I want to ship it to you.
It's just like a virtual cloud blockbuster of just physical DVDs
running back and forth.
-Yes.
Is there anything that still exists that isn't just online?
-I mean, like Magic, Pokemon.
I don't know if those communities have that kind of thing.
There's an element of trust in it, but yeah.
- Yeah.
Do you think you'd be able to abuse a system like this
to gamify the trade a pen all the way up to a car thing
where you're like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
my pen is immediately worth a house or worth a car.
You know what I mean?
- You could, but the thing is that you only mark trades
that you're okay with.
So, I mean, yeah, maybe you get lucky,
but you would have to then, you know,
Other people would have to be taking steps down
along the chain.
- But they wouldn't, the whole point of the pen thing
was that it wasn't to step down
for every person in the chain.
They were getting the paperclip for the apple for the--
- So it totally could happen.
- All the way up through stuff.
- Yeah, the value of the game depends on like the person,
personal aspect, right?
Yeah, so.
- Interesting, that's really cool.
- So anyway, this is the only place that I've seen it
And I just feel like lining up a one-on-one trade,
as much as I love that idea, it's way harder to do
than if you can find a bunch of chains.
- Totally.
- I feel like this is like a library too.
You could do this with books, no problem.
- Oh, for sure.
- Book clubs and good reads in general,
like that site could take that, acquire this company.
(laughs)
Yeah, books is perfect, right?
Because then if it's something you're not gonna read again,
If you're reading a bunch, it's a good way
to just cycle stuff around and get the stuff you want.
Dude, I'm thinking big things too.
It's not like you lose anything if you don't take any trades,
right?
Exactly, yeah.
So I have a ton of stuff that's worth maybe $200, $300
that I'd put on a list and just run it.
And you know what?
I'm just going to post it there every month.
And eventually, somebody is going to trade with me.
Dope.
I'm always going to win.
Once a week, you get all your list of possible,
hey, someone's offering you this, essentially.
The system is offering you this, because it's going to find some capital.
You could make a wish list, maybe, of, hey,
these are the types of things that I'm looking for.
That's exactly what I was going to say.
Because that's something they have, too.
There's a whole separate list that you can say,
hey, I would love it if somebody posted this game.
You ever try to sell something on Craigslist or now Facebook
Marketplace?
Hey, I'll trade you this broken single ice skate.
What?
No, stop.
For your 3D printer.
The worst part is the trade offers you don't care about.
So this system would thrive if you had the somehow indicating
seeding the system with things that you're on the hunt for.
And it's like gets rid of the junk
that you just don't want to get rid of.
But someone else wants it.
And even if it's six trades in order to get what you want,
all of them are just marked pending, everyone agrees,
and then it ships it.
I wonder if you could optimize the buy nothing phenomenon.
Yeah, I was thinking about that too.
Turn that in, like it's the data set.
Because those communities exist.
And there's some really cool stuff
will will give away there by nothing yeah they're they're these Facebook
groups where you just post like hey I've got this thing and when you're trying to
get rid of something and people will just say oh I would love that and you're
like great come pick it up and come get this or the other way hey I like can get
for free online yeah it's it's like Craigslist free but you can also ask for
stuff there too people you know they'll have like a day or a couple days that
you can say hey I'm looking for this if anybody's got one that you're getting
You can so this is kind of like a step up. We have these extra-sized diapers
We just grew out of them and I don't need them anymore or whatever, you know, it's often supplies things like that
This would be really good for if you could ship alcohol easily or weed like either one
Yeah, people would be all over that. How would you how would you trade alcohol not tell us? Yes. Yeah
Like would you be half opened? I love my mailman
Don't even know it
The half-open bottle of Whistlepig just like, shivers in the middle.
I was gonna say, it would be neat to go to one of these groups and offer up your local
special goods, right?
Like, I live in Traverse City and we have all these fresh-picked cherries, but I know
that down south you guys are famous for that variety of oranges in Florida that you can
only get there, so let's do a trade or whatever.
That's a good one, yeah.
You could like, that local candy shop that always makes that one thing on the East Coast
or whatever, right?
And it times it for the season, like, hey, you're not gonna receive these 'til like October
but you're gonna get those fresh oranges in February
or something.
- Oh.
- You got an IOU.
- Yeah.
- The time, the delay.
I didn't even think about that.
That's like a missing 2D chess, 3D chess version, right?
- Yeah, it's a lot of trust in there.
- Yeah, a lot of trust.
- Yeah, with the board game thing, right,
it's like you can't, it can't be a pending thing.
It's gotta be in your possession now
because if something goes wrong, you're on the hook for it.
And so, 'cause--
- Right, 'cause everything falls apart
when one person doesn't ship to the ship
to the ship to the ship. - Right, 'cause you're
holding that chain together. - Exactly.
- You've got an escrow warehouse.
(laughing)
- How does that, like, I'm guessing
that they figure that out, right?
They just ban you or like newbies have a--
- Yeah, yeah, so I mean, you can, things happen, right?
So maybe it's like, oh, you know what, like, crap,
I forgot that I had this in the math trade
and somebody just bought it.
Well, then it's like, well, I can go on Amazon
and just order you the game.
Or, hey, I've got these other games,
is there anything that you would still be happy with?
- Oh, I like that.
- You know, like, there are ways to work that out.
You try to avoid it, but--
- There's a credit card on file,
it'll just buy a new version if you can't.
- I don't have your game, but is there something else
I can do to pay for the trade?
- Mow my lawn.
(laughing)
- Take my fence, yeah, right.
(laughing)
- That'll help.
Well, I mean, that's another thing I thought of, right?
Is like, hey, I have this skill that I would be willing
to like, you know, fix these things around your house
or do this kind of work,
this is another thing I'm looking for.
- You'll appreciate this.
My little sister's boyfriend right now is between jobs
and he just started his own like vibe coding.
Hey, he lives in LA.
He originally was from Mexico City
and he's like, there's all these people around here,
Latino people that just can't have these small businesses
and they don't know how to get their name out there
in any form.
So I have this service or make this cool product.
So I'm just gonna go out there
and he's just actively building websites for them,
starting their businesses for them and helping them.
He has so many offers and so much bartering
with him right now where they're just like,
oh my God, let me offer you this
in exchange for payment going through right here.
- You'll never need a plumber again.
Or whatever. - Exactly.
Like he's doing it for plumbers and electricians
and that's awesome.
He's making a killing out of it,
but also he has all these friends for life
if he ever needs a mechanic again
or anything along those lines. - Pocket favors.
- That's so legit.
Like when I was building WordPress websites back in the day
and people were like, I don't wanna do that.
And it's relatively easy.
It just felt like a good move to do that.
But yeah, man, that's so,
the trading I think would be cool.
I would love to get like, you know,
like lessons or something for other things, right?
Like that'd be so cool.
- Totally.
I could offer dance lessons or tutoring,
things like that and you're trading for other skills.
- One hour for one hour.
- For the next version of Katan.
So legit.
But then maybe that's the way things should be.
Shoot, I'll give you food.
I'll give you just a shitload of food if you--
We've come full circle as a society.
I mean--
When the US dollar collapses, this is going to be our lives.
There will be Bitcoin, and there'll be bartering.
Quad code it now, because the tokens are going up, right?
What you got, Leo?
Alright, every iPhone for the last few years, and iPads too, have a LiDAR scanner and color scanner.
You can make full 3D maps.
Why hasn't anyone turned this into a custom first-person shooter game?
I would love to play paintball or whatever.
Yeah, I know. You gotta like get around the, uh, someone doing this maliciously, and that's the real hang-up.
But maybe you make it a snowball fight, or paintball, or laser tag.
Wouldn't it be fun to hop into that game that you're gonna play with your buds,
and play laser tag or paintball in someone's home, at that place that you all hang out
often, down that mall that you all have in your town or whatever.
The game could have like a communal library of actual places that people have scanned
that you can play hide and seek in or whatever virtually.
I feel like the scanning thing is underutilized and that there's some serious game potential
but there's the whole school shooter problem I haven't gotten around that yet
but if we make that maybe right it's always them that ruin everything fun
right I get the like maybe we just lean into the edginess of I'm gonna play
Call of Duty but it's at my local church or whatever I don't know but nerf guns
are still success yeah we all like people aren't trying to you know so
Exactly. I don't think anyone's done this yet that I've found. I don't know why.
Wait, so sorry. I have my iPhone and I have an app pulled up where I can
like tap a button on the app and it shoots dead ahead. I feel like a crosshair is on my screen.
You have an app. You walk around. You gather the information about the environment. Then,
many months later, days later, weeks later, you sit down at your computer and you play
a multiplayer game in the arena that you scanned.
Oh, that makes way more sense.
That is so cool. Got it. I can play Call of Duty in my home. This is a regular old video game
But the map is the place that you captured. Oh
Frick, that's really fun. Yeah a place I know really well. Yeah so much potential there, right?
That is so cool. Very cool. And I also understand. Okay, instead of shooting it's spray-painting the entire wall
It's a split to me. Sure. It doesn't have to be a shoot based game
It could be a capture the flag game where there's like jetpacks and zaniness it could be
Sure, you remember all the things we used to play that were like Minecraft mod games that weren't shooting but like other stuff you got your
Platforming you've got your this that there's got to be that sort of zany fun
Multiplayer arena game you shrunk down to like the size of a mouse. Yeah, that's exactly where I was gonna go
I want to play Halo in my office on here.
I want to have all the different levels and things going through and just little tiny
Master Chiefs running around with teleports to different levels. That's what I want. Yeah, shrunk version is a really good one.
Oh, this is really cool
because like I bet it's easier to do that and like do something in the physical world and
then make it into a map that you can play on.
I don't know how hard it is to do digitally, but I can imagine it's just easier.
I'm gonna put a Ford up in my house with blankets and pillows and light our scan it and now I have an arena
Yeah
Absolutely. Yeah. Yes. I want to play Age of Empires 2 in my backyard like
10 hours gluing shoeboxes together to finally get this arena. You guys gotta play
Damn, that's really good. Leo a parkour map. That's at your local playground. Oh, yeah
A resource gathering game in your local park.
Oh, like, yeah, you could just Minecraft around your park or something, like build a whole...
Yeah, I want to be shrunk down tiny and fly through my house.
When Google Earth first launched, people were like, "We can make a racing game out of this," and the data is just not quite good
enough. If you had enough people in time with their LiDAR scanning iPhones,
I bet you can make a pretty accurate scale map of, like,
Racing through that one lap that goes around your neighborhood or in your downtown in your local town or whatever
do some
Gran Turismo, but
You know
local suburban home
So cool. Yeah, and and it would be local people that are invested in this right?
So like you already know the area and you've got people around
Yeah, maybe you can take the map that someone else has started and extend it, you know
or scan it in a different time of year or whatever. But yeah, I think the key of this is that you have the game
structures and it's like a marketplace of scans that people have captured, right?
What would it be like to play that one paintball game but in Paris or in the Louvre or I don't know
somewhere famous
Madison Square Garden
Somewhere that someone has scanned already. You can like go to real places and do a Halo match
Bill Gates house. Who scanned this? There could be a marketing opportunity maybe
you've got that one flagship McDonald's store that like puts their 3d scan of
their layout in in the app yeah like if I'm going to a museum or whatever like I
could do this map and play a game and then I know the layout already right
could kind of help yeah acquaint me with the space before I even go there we're
We're going to be robbing banks soon.
Go to the safe.
The vault.
We finally got the blueprint for the vault.
This guy left his password on his desk.
Good thing I scanned it.
I'm just scanning it.
Don't write your password on a sticky note, people.
Don't tell me what to do.
Yeah, and as this expands, I mean, like you said,
you can start stitching stuff together, you know?
Yeah, right.
That's a good way to capture actual map data too, yeah.
Why hasn't a Pokemon Go-esque game done this already?
Pokemon Go is trying to do that.
Oh, really?
They're more incentivizing scanning real-world areas and stuff.
Okay, because the sidewalk data was like, everybody, if you're in the know, you know
they're just trying to figure out where people walk, right, in those sidewalks.
And then now, you have all these...
Well, that wasn't a secret, yeah.
Niantic was all about like, we're not gonna charge
and instead we're gonna sell the data.
We'll get traffic flow data that we can sell
to municipalities and businesses and stuff, yeah.
- Now they've got like route systems
where they're specifically trying to see
where are popular paths people go.
And again, in addition to the scanning stuff,
scanning and they'll like incentivize,
hey, this particular spot we want,
go scan this area and get a special thing or whatever.
Oh, so I can buy, yeah, dang.
I think this would be helpful for maintenance,
construction, you know?
Like, hey, I wanna see somebody scan this wall
and I can sell to the landlord or something
or the municipality.
That needs an upgrade.
Roofs all over, just sell all day, right?
- There'd be some fun opportunities for rare captures,
like construction sites.
if you can capture all of the LiDAR data
for that moment in time.
Or everything's set up for Christmas in this one location,
Rockefeller Center.
So capture everything now and make it
into a rare map that is once in a lifetime sort of moment.
And then you can play it over and over again or whatever.
Overlaying that onto the other something, right?
So you destroy the map of when it's complete,
and now you've got the bones.
Whoa.
- Yes, Ryan.
- That's really cool.
I just want to be shrunk and play Halo.
That's all I want.
(laughing)
I can't stop thinking about that.
That's such a cool idea.
- Well, thank you very, very much for listening.
We hope you enjoyed yourself
and thank you, Ryan, for being here.
This was so fun.
- Yeah, thanks.
This was great.
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