Author: Anthony

Adam and Brady Sadler are back! Two of our favorite personal designers of solo/ coop games return to the show with the new expansion for Street Masters, Aftershock. We love Street Masters here on ENGN. However, we recognize that some gamers encountered barriers when approaching it. We ask the Sadlers how they designed Aftershock not just for pure awesomeness, but to answer some of the criticisms that folks have had, including player scaling/ downtime at four players, rules issues in some scenario interactions, and lack of easy entry points for new players. Aftershock promises to address some of the issues…

Sheeple is a new game from Aaron Smith on Kickstarter now. Below is a sponsored preview video and writeup to help you decide if this is a game worth tracking down for your game group. Do you like puns? Do you like party games? If you answered yes to either of those questions, Sheeple might be in your wheelhouse. The new game, launching on Kickstarter this month from Aaron Smith, is a party game designed around a series of word associations and while not integral to the gameplay, a whole bunch of sheep puns. The game is designed similar to…

I did not think I’d enjoy The Mansky Caper. It’s a light, almost party-style Mafia themed game with strong press your luck elements. None of those words describe much of anything in my wheelhouse, so I understandably approached the game with some trepidation. What I found, though, was something much different than what I expected – not necessarily in terms of mechanics or game play style, but the overall execution of what turns out to be a very good game that fills a gap I didn’t know I had in my collection. How The Mansky Caper plays The Mansky Caper…

Liz and Jeremy are back! The creative minds behind Jambalaya Plays Games (https://jambalayaplaysgames.com/) and Beyond Solitaire (http://www.beyondsolitaire.net/) are here to share about their continuing and terrible KS acquisition disorders! For the Kickstarter preview this week, we talk about a game that’s already out and whose expansion is (or, at least, should be) live as we drop the episode – Expedition (4:17). It’s a card-base RPG that has an app, as well as tons of fan-created content. These are not things that every gamer looks forward to! They break down whether this project integrates those things in ways that folks might…

It’s that time of year again – time to look at the hottest games on BGG and try to figure out why they are there. Join us for a run down of the top 15 games on the Hotness list, what puts them there, and what you should be looking forward to. Before that, though, we remind everyone about our current ongoing contest. Click the link below and share your top games to enter a chance to win one of them from the final list. https://gleam.io/jwEDM/your-top-20-board-games-of-all-time For our question of the week, we asked the listeners, “What game do you…

Liz Davidson joins Jason to welcome Carla Kopp to the show, who is the founder and CEO of Weird Giraffe Games. Our original intention is to review Dreams of Tomorrow, which is live on Kickstarter on the day this podcast drops. We eventually get to that, after we have some fun chatting about random stuff first . Dreams of Tomorrow is a 1-6 player light card game whose main selling point is a rondel system where players interact with one another to take actions, get cards, make sets, and mess with their neighbors. We get into mechanism talk, of course.…

Welcome to an episode that, as of about a week ago, Jason never intended to record! Over one weekend, Jason banged out a full solo campaign of Scythe: The Rise of Fenris. It was so good that it merited an immediate podcast about it. Jason rides solo this week for a non-spoiler chat about Scythe: The Rise of Fenris (3:48), specifically what the different modules offer and whether it’s a must for Scythe players (it is). After that, Jason gets into the two most recent modules for TIME Stories, Estrella Drive and Brotherhood of the Coast (18:30). SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS…

Welcome to spooktacular October episodes! This week, we’re delving deep into the very best of the best in mystery games, featuring our Top 10. Before we dive in, though, make sure you take the time to enter our October contest – tell us your top 20 games and be entered for a chance to win one of the games on the final top 20 listener games list. https://gleam.io/jwEDM/your-top-20-board-games-of-all-time First up on the episode, we asked our question of the week, “is there a set time each year you review and cull your collection, or is it more spontaneous (or for…

We welcome back Brenna Noonan from Starling Games to talk about their newest 1 vs. many game, Anomaly, currently live on Kickstarter. This project was formerly called Ø: Fear Nothing. However, it struggled out of the gate, so Starling decided to pull the plug, repackage, offer a lower price point, and present the same game with a different name – Anomaly. Jason gives a bit of context for the campaign relaunch before presenting the episode. After the preamble, we present the former episode in its entirety. Where you hear the name “Ø: Fear Nothing”, please translate that in your head…

I love a good puzzle. It’s the one factor that is consistent in most of my favorite games – the integration of a clever, puzzle-like mechanic. So, I was immediately interested in Gearworks, the second game from Flag Dash designer Kirk Dennison and PieceKeeper Games. Kickstarted in 2017, Gearworks tasks players with positioning gears and building steampunk contraptions in a workshop. Mechanically, it’s a combination of careful hand management and area control with the gear cards you will collect, and the result is an interesting, card-driven taken on several mechanics I already enjoy. How Gearworks Plays To start, you’ll create…