In this episode, we sail the high seas on our Viking ships to establish trading routes and not pillage in Knarr! 

Knarr is a 2023 game designed by Thomas Dupont with art by Antoine Carrion published in the US by Pandasaurus Games. Knarr celebrates the trading life of a Viking. In the game, players take on the role of Viking traders, recruiting crew to your ship, then sailing to distant lands to establish trade routes. Your trade routes will earn you victory points, as will the songs that skalds sing about you. 

If you’re looking for a medium-light game that offers a fun twist on engine building and celebrates the softer side of Vikings, Knarr is the game for you.

Links:

Buy Knarr on Amazon.

Get ready for your first play of Knarr.

3D print your own Knarr insert.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

"Open Road" by Purple Planet. "Vikings" by Tabletop Audio.

Send us a text

In this episode, we work together to tell the story of how a religion changes over the centuries in… Keep the Faith! 

Keep the Faith is a storytelling game for 2 to 5 players about religions in transition. Each player represents a sect within a fictional religion. Players collaboratively make up the story about the religion and how it changes over five hundred years, with a focus on how the material and observable aspects of the religion reflect or contradict the religion’s core values. 

Keep the Faith is currently on BackerKit seeking crowdfunding. If you’re listening to this before March 6, 2025, follow the link below to the BackerKit page to see if you’d like to help get this game published. Keep the Faith will be published by Central Michigan University Games, an academic press that specializes in peer-reviewed board and role-playing games with educational utility.

The designer of Keep the Faith is Greg Loring-Albright, and I'm excited to share highlights from an interview with Greg that I did for my other podcast, Intentional Teaching. Greg shares about his design goals for the game, the role of agency in Keep the Faith, and the challenges of designing a game about a sensitive topic like religion.

Links:

Support Keep the Faith’s crowdfunding effort before March 6, 2025.

Listen to a longer cut of my conversation with Greg Loring-Albright on the Intentional Teaching podcast.

Throw a few bucks at the Intentional Teaching Patreon to hear a few more clips of my talk with Greg.

Listen to Liz Davidson’s conversation with Greg on her Beyond Solitaire podcast.

Learn more about Greg Loring-Albright on his professional website.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

"Open Road," "Summer in Paradise" by Purple Planet.

Send us a text

Today we have a FIRST PLAY review of Everdell Duo, a 2025 game designed by James and Clarissa Wilson with art by Andrew Bosley and Enggar Adirasa, published by Tabletop Tycoon. The game is a two-player version of the popular 2018 game Everdell, a game that launched a trend in board games featuring friendly anthropomorphic forest animals. Both games are set in the land of Everdell where the squirrels are woodcarvers, the badgers are innkeepers, and the hedgehogs are doctors.

Everdell Duo is a quality two-player experience with all the things you’re looking for in a game: balanced design, thematic mechanics, and adorable art and components. Duo feels like the original Everdell, with worker placement and resource collection and card combos, but with a simpler, faster, and more competitive experience.

Links:

Preorder Everdell Duo from the publisher.

See my photos of Everdell Duo.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

"Open Road" by Purple Planet. "Forest: Day" by Tabletop Audio.

Send us a text

In this episode, we gather around an African watering hole to see who can chase away the most animals in Kariba!

Kariba is about animals gathering around an African watering hold, so the cards are all elephants and giraffes and zebras and meerkats and such. Players take turns playing cards from their hands to the watering hole in the middle of the table, with larger animals chasing off smaller ones. Kariba is my favorite game to bring to family gatherings when (a) I know there will be young kids there, especially pre-readers and (b) I don’t have much space in my luggage, since it comes in a very small box.

Links:

See my photo of Kariba.

Buy Kariba on Amazon.

Watch a watering hole in the Namib Desert.

See Felix Kindelán's Instagram.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

"Open Road," "The Concept" by Purple Planet.

Send us a text

In this episode, we fight zombies and frostbite and maybe stab our friends in the back in Dead of Winter!

In Dead of Winter, a 2014 game designed by Isaac Vega and Jonathan Gilmour with art by Fernanda Suarez, players take on the role of survivors of a zombie apocalypse, trying to find the resources they need to fend off zombies and hunger and cold and the occasional fellow survivor. Dead of Winter is a semi-cooperative game, in that you’re mostly working together to beat the game, but each player has personal objectives that might get in the way.

Dead of Winter was the game that helped me appreciate the world of board gaming beyond Settlers of Catan, and it was my favorite game for several years. I'm happy to help celebrate its tenth anniversary with this episode, which features comments on the game from me, the teenager, and the toddler.

I didn't have time to mention the expansions for Dead of Winter in the episode, but there are two: The Long Night, which adds more characters and scenarios and three optional modules to the game, and Warring Colonies, which you can use to pit two colonies against each other in what can be an 11-player game. I played that one once, and it was a bit much, but The Long Night is a great addition to the base game.

Links:

See my photos of Dead of Winter.

Buy Dead of Winter on Amazon.

Listen to "Bringing Dead of Winter to Life" on the Quarter to Three podcast.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

“Winter Wonder" by Purple Planet.

Send us a text

In this bonus episode, I share an extended cut of my recent interview with Jonathan Chaffer, designer of the Holiday Hijinks series of 18-card escape room games. Jonathan had a lot to say about the design constraints he faced in creating these games, more than I could fit in last episode's review of the series. If you're interested in tabletop game design, I think you'll find this interesting.

Links:

Back the newest Holiday Hijinks games on Kickstarter.

Order the original Holiday Hijinks games from Game Gamers Guild.

See Jonathan Chaffer's full list of designed games.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

"Open Road," "The Concept," and "Summer in Paradise" by Purple Planet.

Send us a text

In this episode, we save Christmas and a lot of other holidays from potential catastrophe in Holiday Hijinks!

Holiday Hijinks is a line of 18-card holiday-themed escape room games designed and illustrated by Jonathan Chaffer and published by Grand Gamers Guild. Each one offers the cooperative puzzle solving of an escape room in just 18 cards. There are nine games in the series currently, with names like The Cupid Crisis, The Turkey Trial, and The Groundhog Gambit. The newest Holiday Hijinks games -- The Leprechaun Larceny, The New Year Nightmare, and The Krampus Caper -- are now crowdfunding on Kickstarter, along with a collector's box that stores all 12 games.

This episode features an interview with Holiday Hijinks designer and illustrator Jonathan Chaffer. What does it take to pack this much escape room fun in 18 cards? Will the Holiday Hijinks series run out of holidays? Jonathan pulls back the curtain on this clever game series in his interview.

Links:

Back the newest Holiday Hijinks games on Kickstarter.

Order the original Holiday Hijinks games from Game Gamers Guild.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

"Open Road," "The Concept," and "Summer in Paradise" by Purple Planet.

Send us a text

In this episode, we load up our donkey carts with fruit to deliver around the island in Finca!

In Finca, players take on the role of farmers at harvest time on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Move your farmers around the windmill to generate resources, collect colorful chunky fruit tokens, deliver fruit strategically around the island with your donkey cart... That's Finca in a nutshell. It's easy to teach, has beautiful art and components, and ramps up nicely to a very tense ending.

Finca is one of the older games we've covered here on the podcast, having first been published in 2009 in Germany. It had been out of print for a while, but Pandasaurus Games recently issued a new edition with updated art and streamlined rules. In this episode, I talk with Raina Huang, marketing manager at Pandasaurus games, about the new edition.

Links:

See my photos of the original edition of Finca.

Buy the new edition of Finca from Amazon.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

“Open Road” and "Summer in Paradise" by Purple Planet.

Send us a text

Today we have a FIRST PLAY review of Sirens, a 2024 game for two players designed by Art Casey with illustrations by Gabi Naftaly and published by Envy Born Games. In Sirens, players take on the role of the sirens of Greek myths, those creatures whose beautiful singing lured Odysseus’ sailors into the sea and to their doom. In the game, players draft cards to create musical symphonies, with the best symphonies enthralling those hapless sailors.

This episode features an interview with Sirens designer Art Casey (from the floor of Gen Con 2024) and some color commentary with my fascinating wife Emily!

Links:

Buy Sirens on Amazon.

Get notified when the Kickstarter for Kalahari is launched.

Check out some ancient Greek pottery: Example 1, Example 2.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

"Open Road," "Summer in Paradise," and "Sunbeam" by Purple Planet. 

Send us a text

Usually when I review and recommend a board game here on the podcast, I’ve played that game at least ten times. That way I know the game well and I know it has some staying power. That means I usually review older games, but I like to play new games, too. So here’s a FIRST PLAY review of a new game that I think you might like!

Today we’ll take a look at Tír na nÓg, a 2024 game for designed by Isaac Shalev and Jason Slingerland and published by Grand Gamers Guild. In Tír na nÓg, we journey into a world of Celtic myths and come back with amazing stories. Coincidentally, I recently journeyed into the world of Gen Con, North America’s biggest board game convention, I have come back with amazing stories, one of which is an interview with Isaac Shalev, one of the designers of Tír na nÓg.

Links:

Pre-order Tír na nÓg by September 5, 2024.

See my photos of Tír na nÓg.

Order a First Player Token coffee mug.

Visit the First Player Token website.

Join the FPT Facebook group.

Follow @firstplayertoken on Bluesky.

Join the Family Tabletop Community on Discord.

Music:

“Open Road” and “Summer in Paradise” by Purple Planet. 

Send us a text