Author: Anthony
Anthony
Anthony cofounded Board Gamers Anonymous in 2013 and has been on (almost) every episode. Today, he lives in Philadelphia with his family and teaches first year writing at Thomas Jefferson University.
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…
Thebrandt from the Portal Gaming Podcast rejoins the show to help us with the last of our “Should I Buy It?” series of deep dive, thorough reviews. We get into Chronicles of Crime, the new app-integrated case solving game from Lucky Duck Games. Brandt loves Detective from Portal Games, so we get into a comparison between the two, looking at what each of them offers in terms of complexity and fun factor. To wrap up this quasi-holiday themed series of episodes, Jason presents five games to get for yourself and/ or others which are “beyond the hotness” (28:00). These are…
This week’s episode is a fun one, if only because you can tell we are jazzed for next week and our big milestone at 200. In advance of that, we’re going back to a classic with our “if you like” series. This time around, focused on Talisman – the classic fantasy themed roll and move. To kick things off, we asked the listeners our question of the week: “We’re in the home stretch for 2018 – what are some of your favorite games of the year?” For our acquisition disorders this week, Anthony is psyched for a new (but limited)…
You guys asked for Arkham? You’re getting some Arkham! Every year, we get more and more content from the Cthulhu-verse, especially from Fantasy Flight. This year, we are getting a brand new edition of the grand-daddy of them all – Arkham Horror. How different is this new edition? Should folks who love and/ or own the second edition give this one a close look? I invited noted Arkham-ologist Luke Hector, the Broken Meeple, on to the show to help us figure that all out (4:06). As a bonus, this episode also has part two of a crossover from our friends…
Alright, Pax is over and we had a blast. One of the best cons of the year for us (not just because it’s local) and full of tons of games being played. As is our tradition, we’re recapping this week how the con went, what we loved, and what games we both saw and got a chance to play. Because this is Pax, there were a lot! Previews and discussions of: Keyforge, Quacks of Quedlinburg, Azul Stained Glass, Victorian Masterminds, Architects of the West Kingdom, Teotihuacan, Terraforming Mars Colonies, Chronicles of Crime, Reykholt, Tokyo Metro, Battlestar Galactica, and Root First impressions…