Author: Anthony

Anthony and Frances from Ant Lab Games return for more solo gaming discussion! This time, we chat about ‘games beyond the hotness’ – that is, games that are some of our favorites from the last few years, but which have flown under the radar for various reasons. Afterwards, we chat about the ethics of board game reviewers getting free stuff from publishers. Does it affect our objectivity? What responsibilities do we have to publishers, as well as to the audience?

We’re a little late this week due to some technical difficulties, but we have a bunch of new games to talk about, so the show must go on! We may not have made it to Essen last week, but we sure watched the hot games as they hit the show. This week we have a rundown of which games were hottest and which ones we’re most excited to have in hand in the future. First up is our question of the week, in which we asked you what games you want to see out of Fantasy Flight Interactive, the first…

Yes, folks, we are posting the regular weekly episode early this week! Ryan Laukat of Red Raven Games dropped by the show to chat about Near and Far as well as it’s expansion, Amber Mines, which is in its last week on Kickstarter.  Ryan talks about lots of aspects of Near and Far, including comparisons to Above and Below, the challenge of designing a competitive storytelling game, and how serendipity played a role in the design of the map book. And of course, we talk about solo play!  Special thanks to thebrandt, Brandt Sanderson of the Portal Gaming Podcast, for…

Two special guests join us this week to discuss three big heavy games! Anthony is very excited because he gets to talk about the heaviest games he’s had at the table for the last few weeks with Anthony and Frances from Antlab Games, who also love the heavier side of the gaming hobby. Jason steps back (but not out!) as they heavy gamers discuss Manhattan Project: Energy Empire, Anachrony, and Lisboa – both from the general gameplay perspective and how they approach solo play (both successfully and in some cases, less so). Make sure to check out Antlab games on…

Disclosure: The designer provided a copy of Mangaka for this review. Mangaka is a drawing game, and therefore, I shouldn’t rightly have any interest in it. I am, after all, objectively a horrible artist. I cannot draw, and have never pretended I could. Any game that asks me to do so in a competitive way tends to be infuriating to play, and I frequently lose. With that out of the way, I can say honestly that I rather enjoyed Mangaka, because the drawing, while the primary mechanic, serves a deeper purpose and rewards quick thinking and problem solving in a…

Disclosure: A review copy of the Lightseekers Starter Kit was provided by PlayFusion for the purposes of this review. One of the most colorful booths at Gen Con this year (a usually very contentious category) was for Lightseekers: Awakenings. At first glance, a trading card game with the aesthetic of Hearthstone, Lightseekers is much more than just another collectible card game. One spoke of a three-pronged multi-media experience, the Lightseekers card game integrates with a digital app that includes an RPG, augmented reality interaction, and a separate set of toys that also interact with the game. This review is going…

This week we feature part two of our conversation about the BGG.com Top 100 games of all time and our quick take reviews on each of them. Find out which of these are plays and buys, and what one game made it to the dodge list (for one of us). Before that, dive into our question of the week. Anthony asks the listeners how they handle next play selection in their game groups. Some interesting answers about friendly dictatorships. For our acquisition disorders this week, Anthony discusses the newest game from Vladimir Suchy (Shipyard, Last Will) – Pulsar 2849 -…

Sponsored by Geeks 1st Earlier this month, we ran a contest to highlight the pains gamers go through to keep their stuff organized. We asked you to send us your messiest, least organized, or most complicated games to pull out and play with the winners being awarded with gift certificates to Geeks 1st, a custom game organizer company that specializes in modular designed organizers. Geeks 1st was kind enough to sponsor the contest to help those who just couldn’t get their games into the box right, with their Modulas system. We received dozens of entries from gamers, including photos of…

Jason and Anthony dig into five new apps that came out between May and September and let you know if you should track them down.  Join the guys as they review Jaipur, Friday, Bottom of the Ninth, Burgle Bros., and Through the Ages – all in digital form. 

Chris and Anthony are back this week to discuss the BGG.com top 100 board games. We get asked a lot which of these we’ve played and which we haven’t, and whether we’d recommend one particular hot game or another. So, we figured, why not do them all! To kick things off, we ask everyone our question of the week, “What game has been sitting on your shelf unplayed the longest?” We got dozens of responses – apparently a lot of games are going unplayed out there! Next up, we dove into our acquisition disorders for the week. Anthony looked at…