Author: Anthony

Several days a week, I ask followers on Facebook and Twitter to share their thoughts on a question of the day. Follow us on either platform and you’ll see the questions and able to join in the conversation. It’s a fun way to see how other gamers plan their game nights, what games they really enjoy (or don’t), and how they respond to current events in the hobby. Last week, I asked for advice that BGA listeners would provide to people who are brand new to gaming, and they offered a lot of really good thoughts, so I wanted to…

This week, we’re looking at games you might like if you like video games (or more likely, if your stubborn video gaming friends are hesitant to try board games!) First up, we ask our question of the week, “what one piece of advice would you give to someone brand new to gaming?” For our acquisition disorders this week Anthony is looking at Xia: Embers of a Forsaken Star (and trolling himself in the process), while Chris looks at FINCA – a board game with…fruit! For our at the table segments this week, Anthony reviews Indian Summer from Uwe Rosenberg, yet…

We’ve wanted to have a pod conversation with these two gentlemen for a long time, and it’s finally here! It was out pleasure to speak with Morten Monrad Pederson and David Studley from the Automa Factory. For those who don’t know, an Automa is a small deck of cards that acts as a “bot,” simulating another player at the table. You can use it to fill in for another gamer at the table who can’t make it for the evening, or as an opponent for solo play. After telling us a little about themselves, they talk about fan reception to…

This week, we’re revisiting a classic episode (#85) and looking at games that do especially well in representing female characters. First up, we look at our question of the week. We asked the listeners what games thoroughly blew away their expectations, and share some of our own big surprises. Next up, we look at CO2, the revamped edition of the classic Vital Lacerda game, now on Kickstarter in our Acquisition Disorder for the week. For our At the Table reviews, Anthony looks at Rudiger Dorn’s Montana, and Chris dives into a little game you may have heard of, Eric Lang’s…

Welcome to part two of our year end ENGN Solo Awards for 2017! We hope you enjoyed part one last episode. This time, we feature all of the core titles that made the biggest impact in the solo and cooperative communities throughout the year. And, just like last time, we have some illustrious guests from other channels to help us out. Best Short Game – presented by Travis from Low Player Count (2:00) – https://www.lowplayercount.com/ Best Family/ Casual Strategy Game – presented by Liz Davidson from Beyond Solitaire (5:52) – http://www.beyondsolitaire.net/index.html Best Advanced Card Game – presented by a mystery…

This week’s episode is sponsored by Academy Games, whose new game, Agents of Mayhem: Pride of Babylon is on Kickstarter now.  We also want to thank all of our new Patreon backers this week: Finn, Eric, Barry, Suppiluliuma, and Jim. This week, we have an all new Top 10 list, featuring the best deck building games out there. First up, Chris and Anthony dive into our question of the week, looking at your answers to the question, “what game or designer would you attend a dedicated convention for?” For our acquisition disorders, we look at Teotihuacan: City of Gods from one…

You may have seen the voting polls on Facebook and the 1 Player Guild. Now it’s time to hand out our ENGN Solo Awards for 2017! Anthony and Jason both chose their own winners, and the fans helped up break any ties between us with their own votes! Not only do we present each award with analysis for each category, we asked a number of friends in the solo and cooperative community to help present (one of whom gets eaten by a Shoggoth monster… you’ll have to listen to find out who). Best Board Game App – presented by Crystal…

What’s hot on BGG right now? Join us for our monthly BGG Hotness review. Chris and Anthony delve into the 15 games atop the hotness this week, along with a pair of new reviews and much more.  To kick things off, we asked the listeners for the most important things a FLGS can do to earn their patronage.  In our acquisition disorder this week, Anthony digs into UBOOT and Chris looks at the lighter, but still very pretty new game from Eagle Gryphon Games – The Scarlet Pimpernel. At the Table this week, Anthony reviews the long awaited reprinting of…

Welcome back to our special Preview Series, the show where Kickstarter designers and project managers answer all of your questions about their projects. We hope you get everything you need to know so that you can make an informed decision about whether a KS project is worth your hard earned cash. Today, we are happy to chat the publisher and designer of one of the most popular, family friendly projects currently on Kickstarter, which is Tiny Epic Zombies. Scott Almes and Michael Coe share their stories about the origin of TEZ, design goals, ITEMeeples, use (or perhaps overuse) of the…

For this week’s episode, we are extremely happy to bring you our interview with Rory O’Connor, lead designer for Rory’s Story Cubes. We could only barely contain the story telling flair that Rory brought to the pod! Albert from the 1 Player Podcast has returned to ENGN to help us out with the interview, as well. After a brief intro where we learn a bit about Rory as a gamer, we get into the history of the Cubes (6:50), particularly focusing on how he used them as a self-help tool and how they grew into a game and story telling…