Author: Anthony

Thanks to our new Patreon backer this week, Jim. Special thanks as well to Martin for his upgraded pledge. We’re only $13 away from our next milestone – which would mean contests every week for backers. Check it out! It’s that time of year again – we’re looking forward to the games we already know are on the horizon to share what we’re most looking forward to. We kick off this week’s episode with our question of the week, “What are your board game resolutions for 2019?” and then dive into the big question – what games are we most…

Animal Kingdoms, currently on Kickstarter, is the very first game from the new collaborative company, Galactic Raptor Games. The co-founders of Galactic Raptor, Carla Kopp and Dan Letzring, drop by to chat about the accessible nature of its card play, as well as the solo mode. Carla and Dan also chat about why they came together to form Galactic Raptor. Stay tuned for the aftershow in this one! We get into some predictions for 2019, including a desire to see more diverse, off-the-beaten path games and what both Carla and Dan are doing to make that happen. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/galacticraptorgames/animal-kingdoms-an-award-winning-game-of-area-cont?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=animal%20kingdoms

We are happy to be joined again by three designers of excellent games with non-traditional themes – Elizabeth Hargrave, designer of Wingspan; Sarah Reed, designer of Oaxaca: Crafts of a Culture; and R. Eric Reuss, designer of Spirit Island. In this half of the conversation we consider some larger picture questions that arise from their games. They share thoughts on how much background research went into all of their games, and also how they address the issue of problematic depictions of different cultures in games. Finally, we tackle the difficult issue of representation in the game designer and publisher communities.…

Thanks to our new Patreon backers this week, Keith and Amy. Special thanks as well to Jim for his upgraded pledge. We’re only $26 away from our next milestone – which would mean contests every week for backers. Check it out! With 2019 now here and new games just around the corner, we want to take one last look back at 2018 and the games we listed as our most anticipated of the year last January. How did they fare? Did they release and if so, did we like them or were we disappointed? There’s a fair mix of both…

Happy New Years, everyone! Our number one wish here at ENGN is to get more and more games that color outside of the lines, so to speak. New and different games makes the gaming hobby better all around.  To that end, we gathered three designers of games with very non-traditional themes to share their thoughts – Elizabeth Hargrave, designer of Wingspan; Sarah Reed, designer of Oaxaca: Crafts of a Culture; and R. Eric Reuss, designer of Spirit Island.  For this first part of the conversation, we consider questions about tying theme and mechanisms, selling games that don’t have zombies and…

Another year of amazing games is behind us, and that means it’s time to share our best of the best and hand out our annual awards. This year, we’ve selected 10 categories (5 of which were recommended by listeners) and then rounded it off with our top 2 games of the year overall. Categories include: Listener Categories: Overlooked Gem of the Year Most Innovative of the Year Biggest Surprise Theme that’s Done (for a while) Best Expansion Most Underrated BGA Categories: 2.0 of the Year Kickstarter of the Year Game We Wish We’d Played Most Unnecessarily Overproduced Most Argued Over…

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone! We are very excited to continue bringing you old news – PAX Unplugged recap, part two!Jason shares about three more games that hit the table in and around PAX. First there’s Gem Rush, Second Edition (3:25), which is the first game that we will have reviewed twice on the pod. The Second Edition adds… more stuff! It doesn’t leave soot on your hands as you play! Jason is really excited to share about it. The next game is also a reiteration – Cosmic Run: Regeneration from Dr. Finn’s Games (8:46). If you liked…

As a followup to Episode 200, we wanted to hear from the listeners on what their favorite games were, and you came through! We’re excited to share the results of a survey of nearly 300 listeners who shared their top 20 games. We’ve aggregated the results and pulled the top 20 overall games together into a list of the best of the best. Additionally, we take a look in this episode at what fell off of our top 50 lists from 4 years ago when we recorded Episode 100, and how we feel our lists have evolved since then. If…

It’s the big 200 this week – our 200th episode of all time, and we’re psyched. So psyched that we recorded a whole bunch of content to help keep you guys busy over the holiday break. That’s right, it’s time for our Top 100 games of all time again, and this time with a bit of a twist. Anthony and Chris have both prepared a top 100 list of their own games. On episode 200 you can listen to the top 50 for each of them, with a very special bonus coming to Patreon including the 51-100 selections for all…

Last year, we went to PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, where we had a lot of fun, played a lot of games, and gathered clips from various attendees who spoke about the show. This year, we have two episodes for you! More games, more clips, and more coverage of the only convention that Jason gets to go to all year (hooray for newborns…). We start things off with two first impressions of some good games – with some more plays, we might get back to these for some proper reviews. First, Anthony and Chris from Board Gamers Anonymous join Jason for…