Every Night Is Game Night

We here at Every Night is Game Night love when we can preview a project that we've already reviewed and already know is good. Back in Episode 96, Liz, Jeremy and Jason covered a bunch of recently delivered KS projects including The Shared Dream, a big, scenario-based adventure game with an Arkham Horror feel, but with some interesting twists that made it unique. The CEO and co-founder of ODAM publishing (as well as fellow New Yorker), John Borgese was good enough to stop by the show to talk about what's new with this project. Thanks to fan feedback, they have revamped the core box of The Shared Dream and are giving you a big expansion with more coop and solo play. John breaks down how the fans made the game better and what the new expansion has to offer.

When the year began and we were looking at the landscape of upcoming games, we didn't foresee that Root would emerge as a contender for Game of the Year. Even for those who don't see what all the fuss is all about, there's no denying that Root is generating a lot to fuss about. What's the deal? Anthony, Jason, and special guest The Brandt from the Portal Gaming Podcast break down where it improves on Vast, how it succeeds at being both asymmetrical and accessible, and some issues people have. For our Improve Your Play segment, we invited the designer of Root, Cole Wherle, to share his thoughts (22:01). We have a long discussion about general strategy for Root, as well as how to win with (or, perhaps more importantly, how to beat) each of the base game's four factions. Special thanks to my friend Harrison for helping out, who has played Root a bunch and who contributes his own perspectives. Please do not be intimidated by the length of the show! A good chunk of the audio occurs after the outro music, where Col

Here at Every Night is Game Night, we give the people what they want. A follower on twitter, Lyle Freijo, tagged both ENGN and Thunderworks Games and equested a preview series for their latest game, Lockup. Keith Matejka and Jason quickly emailed one another and made it happen the same night. Ask and you shall receive! Keith chats about the genesis of the new game Lockup, a worker placement game with a healthy dose of suspicion and mischief at the table. Keith focuses especially on the pain-staking process of playtesting and producing the most polished product they could provide. He also talks a lot about the success of Roll Player and the slow process of turning it into a franchise. Yes, there are many, many more games in the Roll Player universe to come.

Anthony took a nap for last week's episode, so now it's time for Jason to hit the hay and let Anthony spread Euro wings. We chat some very hot Euros that were featured at GenCon this year. We also invited our friend, thebrandt from the Portal Gaming podcast, to help Anthony out in dissecting these games. Today, we will discuss: Newton - 4:21 Coimbra - 16:12 Wendake - 23:31 Founders of Gloomhaven - 36:06

Anthony has run for the hills this week, making room for Jason to revel in new cooperative games from GenCon (don't worry, Anthony be back next week in all of his Euro glory). Jason also brought along a few friends from the One Stop Coop Shop YouTube channel and also CoOp Cast, Colin and Steve. Thanks for helping out! They go over some fun games that were featured at the big show. Colin breaks down Talisman: Legendary Tales (4:14), a children's style adventure game that hearkens back (sort of) to the old Talisman game that many folks have played before. Jason and Steve then break down SEAL Team Flix (12:17), a flicking game about marines infiltrating some enemy bases. It's certainly unique, which we appreciate here on ENGN! Jason and Colin then break down Kitchen Rush (22:54), newly released in the US from Stronghold Games. Kitchen Rush is a real time game about running a restaurant that Colin has played an estimated 40 times already (so you know it must be pretty good, at the very least). Finally, all three

Jason is very, very, very excited to bring you an expansion to one of his favorite family-weight games. The Primordial expansion for Planetarium is current live on kickstarter. Brenna Noonan, who works for Game Salute and helped with the development with the expansion, stopped by the show to talk about how the two modules of the expansion directly addressed issues that people may have had with the base game. We also get a quick preview of the expansion for Everdell, also currently on Kickstarter. Brenna then goes into some shop talk about Game Salute. People hear the name "Game Salute" and they have feelings about it. Brenna gives her honest reaction to Game Salute's poor reputation, as well as what she and her company have done to rebound and move forward. Check out the project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sparkworks/planetarium-primordial-expand-your-planetarium-uni

Our post GenCon coverage rolls on with expansions for some of our favorite games. Jason starts off with a review of Tiny Epic Defenders: The Dark War (4:17), as well as the second edition of the base game, Jason answers whether this one will have a chance to convert folks who may have been on the fence about it from the first edition and whether it has something new to offer. Anthony takes the baton for an expansion to one of our favorite games - the Prelude expansion for Terraforming Mars (11:23). Short answer: just get it, it's pretty awesome. Jason comes back with Near and Far: Amber Mines (16:51), which includes a long awaited cooperative mode. Anthony's final expansion is the Beyond the Gates Expansion for Paper Tales, which adds a solo mode to this card drafting game. Finally, Luke and Jason duke it out over one of the biggest expansions to land this year - Sentinels of the Multiverse: Oblivaeon (34:20). One of us liked it, one of us didn't, so it was a lot of fun to go back and forth about it. We hope

Our massive, multi-part GenCon recap rolls on! This week, we have some games that are heavily soaked in story and narrative. If you are looking to engage your family and/ or game group in some immersive experiences, we have some good picks for you. First, Anthony talks about Spy Club (3:20), a card-based game where you act as Nancy Drew-esque kid crime solvers, tracking down suspects and righting wrongs in your own home town. Anthony and Jason come down on surprisingly different sides of the fence for that one. Jason then describes and compares Z-Man Games Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger with the Graphic Novel Adventures from Van Ryder Games (13:35). They both cover the same ground, but do so in very different ways and for different audiences. Finally, Anthony chimes back in and talks about Detective: A Modern Crime Story from Portal Games (22:51). Comparing all of these experiences led both of us to discuss the broader nature of theme in games - what does "theme" actually mean, what makes a game t

It's been a little while since the last Preview Series pod, but we are back with a fun little card game (you know Jason loves his card games). Konstantinos Kokkinis, founder and CEO of Artipia Games, joins the show to chat about A Thief's Fortune. This is a card drafting game with some neat mechanisms meant to highlight a richer storytelling element than you might find in similar games. Konstantinos gives his pitch for how the tactically inspired mechanisms lend to the theme, and also discusses the solo mode. After we chat about the game, Jason pokes his nose into the behind-the-scenes of the last Kickstarter project for this game. This is not the first launch of A Thief's Fortune - it was launched earlier in the year, but pulled four days in. Konstantinos was very honest about why Artipia pulled the project, how they dealt with miffed backers, and what they did to make this project better. KS Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/241478362/a-thiefs-fortune-by-artipia-games?ref=nav_search&result=proj

Holy GenCon reviews! This is the first of a multi-part series where we cover all of the fun stuff we played post-GenCon. There was a LOT of games and, to our surprise, much of it was pretty good! We won't keep all of these games on our shelves, but we can say that pretty much everything we talk about over the next few episodes will appeal to someone out there in our audience. This week, we chat about "filler" games. We do not mean that term pejoratively! These are games that might slide into anyone's collection and provide fun for families and gamers alike. Trainmaker (6:52) Railroad Ink (11:30) Istanbul: The Dice Game (17:27) Palm Island (24:53) Maiden's Quest (29:28) The Draugr (39:07)

We did it! Episode 100! The whole ENGN family has gathered - Anthony, Jason, and Liz. We chat about things we are thankful for, both with reference to the pod as well as to the larger world of board gaming. First, all three of us share some thoughts about an older game we are are very thankful for. These are three games that have permanent places in our collections, so we are happy to share about them with you - Nations (4:13), Space Alert (15:40), and Baseball Highlights 2045 (26:45). After that, we share some reflections about the last 100 episodes. We chat about noteworthy past episodes, favorite interviews and segments, and some life difficulties behind the mic that the pod has helped us overcome. If that wasn't enough, we also have some audio clips from past guests - gamers, content creators, and designers - who wanted to share things they are thankful about in the board gaming hobby. Thank you for joining us for 100 episodes. We're just hitting our groove. We hope you stick around for at least 100 more.

Are you a person who owns Star Wars: Rebellion, but it just sits there collecting dust because you don't have the time or table space for it? This week, we have a game for you! We welcome Jon Simantov to the pod, designer of Liberation, which is an 18 card game which distills the essence of what makes Star Wars: Rebellion fun into a short, tight, and fun package. Jon discusses how he was able to recreate truly asymmertic gameplay in only 18 cards, as well as the advice he got from famous designers while making Liberation. Jason Tagmire from Button Shy Games also joins us to talk about the current Kickstarter and how Liberation fits into his growing catalog of 18 card games (over 60 and counting!). Campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/239309591/liberation-an-asymmetric-hidden-movement-game

For our last episode before 100, we are really excited to shine a big, bright spotlight on a few corners of the board gaming world that you might not know much about. If you want to build up some "indie cred" when it comes to some potential hot games in the future, this is the show for you! First up, we welcome back Chris Harris, who runs the Solitaire Print and Play game design contest on BGG. We spoke with Chris last year, and he's back to talk about how much the contest has grown, how excited we are for past winners and designers to move on to bigger and better things (including the publication of last year's winner, Black Sonata), and what's there to check out this year. As of the date of this episode airing, 8/10/18, the Solitaire PnP contest is still going on. You can check out games, participate in playtests, and follow conversations here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2011569/2018-solitaire-print-and-play-contest Our second interview is a doozy - five people on a Skype call, and somehow it did not

Anthony is taking the reins this week, at least when it comes to the games we're reviewing this week. Anthony is a huge, huge fan of Roll and Write games, so he wanted to take some time and share about three different games. Welcome To... is all the hotness nowadays. He also tells us about Steamrollers and the (hopefully) soon to be available in the US, Ganz schon clever. If you want to check out a whole Facebook group on Roll and Write games, check out the group made by Glenn Flaherty from the Board Games and Bourbon YouTube channel: https://www.facebook.com/groups/224908144790699/about/ We then answer a question from our Facebook group this week, from our friend Corey Mayo. We get into the distinction between "solo" and "solitaire", as well as how we should regard a gamer who enjoys playing games multihanded. Should chess be considered a solo game if you play both sides? We tackle that question from all angles, hopefully shedding more light than heat.

We are happy to be joined this week by Stephen Gibson. He gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the design, development, and multiple iterations of Grimslingers, a card game that has a duel mode as well as a solo-coop adventure card game mode. We thought this would be an interesting discussion, not only to talk about Grimslingers and its new expansion, Northern Territories, but also to address big picture questions about iteration of design, responding to fan feedback, releasing multiple editions, and working with a publisher. Stephen gives his very honest opinions about the whole process. To help us with the show, we have enlisted Wendy Barlow of the Singlehandedly blog. Thanks, Wendy! If you want to check out more content for Grimslingers, especially the latest version of the campaign mode, follow this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1609x-kod0y1wdK3SnNeYDdSV8VU7hieAzui2rGXzzCc/edit

We didn't think we would do another Kickstarter mega-pod for a good long while. However, we've gotten so many delivered kickstarters that we had to bring the band back together! (we know, we have some acquisition disorder issues...) So, we are happy to welcome back Liz from Beyond Solitaire and Jeremy from Jambalaya Plays Games. First up, Jeremy shares about Ninth World: A Skill Building Game in Numenara (5:25), a deckbuilder-esque cooperative game with a RPG feel. Then Liz tells us about the new 4x-style release from our friend Carla Kopp, Stellar Leap (13:30). Jason then brings us away from the short games and talks about two big, honking adventure games which could not be more different - the Euro-style mechanism heavy dungeon crawling game, Perdition's Mouth: Abyssal Rift (20:17), as well as the urban, story driven adventure game, The Shared Dream (36:47), Finally, the whole gang weighs in about a deckbuilder set in a Roman Colosseum setting, Carthage (48:54).

In today's episode, we talk about two highly competitive games, both set in fictional worlds that both Anthony and Jason absolutely love. First, we talk about The Expanse (3:24), an area control game set in the universe of the same name. Anthony explores some of the mechanisms here that evoke Twilight Struggle, while Jason brings his usual investigative eye towards theme integration. After that, Jason covers Mistborn: House War, a negotiation game filled with betrayal and chicanery set in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn universe. Jason played the game with two groups - a group that did not know the books, and a group of Kickststarter backers (pictured int the banner) that love the Mistborn series. We hear their different reactions and perspectives. We also had a chance to talk to Alex Flagg from Crafty Games, who shares some of the background detail about how Mistborn: House War came together and why they chose to make it a competitive game.

Following up on Top 100 Co-ops from all of last week, we keep the co-op love going with this episode. First, Anthony and Jason share about their recent plays of Thanos Rising: Avengers Infinity War (4:13), letting you know if this game rises above its IP and can stand alone on its own. Then we chat about the new real time game from Tim Fowers that just shipped to Kickstarter backers, Now Boarding (12:12). For our latest Improve Your Play segment, we tackle a game that has earned its reputation for being very, very difficult to beat - Ghost Stories (23:50). Jason chats with designer Mike Mullins (Circle the Wagons, Pentaquark) about basic strategies to hopefully help your group over the finish line.

Over the last month, Jason was joined by Luke Hector from The Broken Meeple to talk about their Top 100 Cooperative Games. We've provided you with that audio throughout the entire week, which we hope you have enjoyed. You can see the videos for all 100 games, including some bonuses, over at Luke's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmjyHBcqxxQjrg0KUN944dQ. In this episode, we present Luke and Jason's Top 10 Cooperative Games from that list. In addition, Anthony jumps in with his own Top 10 list. If you've paid any attention to our show, you know Anthony is way more enthused about Euros. So, before we get to the coops, Anthony shares his favorite Euros that play solo.

Before we get to our Top Ten Cooperative Games in our next full ENGN episode, we wanted to share with you some of the games that missed the list. There's about 40 more games here outside of the top 100, including some excellent games that would have made the list but were played after the list was completed. Between everything presented here, you should be good for ages! Once again, please head over to The Broken Meeple's YouTube Channel for the original video versions of the show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmjyHBcqxxQjrg0KUN944dQ