First Player Token

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.

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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

In this episode, we build the technologies and societies needed to fight climate change in Daybreak!

Daybreak is a 2023 game published by CMYK and designed by Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace. In this cooperative board game, up to four players take on the role of world powers like the U.S. and China enacting climate action policies. The goal of the game is to cut carbon emissions before the planet gets too hot or too many communities are put into crisis. That sounds like a lot of heavy lifting for a board game until you consider that one of the game’s designers, Matt Leacock, is the designer of the very popular cooperative board game Pandemic, another game that does a lot of heavy lifting.

Earlier this year, I had the chance to interview Daybreak’s other designer, Matteo Menapace, about the design of the game as a learning experience. In my day job, I help faculty and other instructors in higher education develop and refine their teaching skills and as part of that work I produce and host a podcast called Intentional Teaching. That podcast gives me a chance to interview all kinds of educators about the ways they approach their teaching. I couldn’t resist reaching out to Matteo to talk about Daybreak. He and I had a fascinating conversation about learning design in that context, and I share a few clips of that interview in this first-ever crossover between my two podcasts!

Links:

See my photos of Daybreak.

Visit the Daybreak website.

Listen to my full interview with Matteo Menapace.

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

In this episode, we celebrate four years (and 50 episodes) of the podcast by recommending my top five games to start your board game collection!

I started First Player Token to provide some advice to people who like playing board games with family and friends but maybe get a little overwhelmed when shopping for board games at Target or Barnes & Noble. In the spirit of welcoming new people into the board game hobby, I have five games to recommend in this episode if you’re just starting your board game collection.

I also have a pretty fun announcement: I’m a YouTuber! And by that I mean that I’ve produced my first how-to-play video. With lots of encouragement from Emily and my friend Jeff and others, I’ve finally tried my hand at taking my board game teaching skills to YouTube. On the First Player Token YouTube channel, you’ll now find “Space Explorers – Your First Play.”

Also, the two-year-old official joins the podcast in this episode, with some audio from his very first family board game experience!

Links:

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 “Isola Bella” 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 Color Field from 25th Century Games. Color Field is a 2024 game designed by Mondo Davis with art by Peach Benitez.

Links:

Buy Color Field on Amazon.

“How Mark Rothko Unlocked the Emotional Power of Colors” by Alina Cohen

Canva’s Color Wheel, where you can make your own tetradic color schemes

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 “Sunbeam” by Purple Planet. 

Send us a text

In this episode, we put on our funny Viking hats and go plundering in Raiders of the North Sea!

Raiders of the North Sea is a two to four player game published in 2015 by Garphill Games. It was designed by Shem Phillips with art by Mihajlo Dimitrievski. The game is about building your Viking crew, raiding settlements, and bringing back plunder for your chieftain. Raiders offers an interesting twist on the worker placement genre of games. Each player has precisely one worker—a Viking—that they can send on their turn to some unoccupied location on the board. They activate that location, getting something useful from it, and then—here’s the twist—they choose another location that has a worker, activate that location, and retrieve the worker to use on their next turn.

Place a Viking, do a thing, retrieve a different Viking, do a different thing. This simple mechanic powers a very fun game with the right balance of strategic planning and beating your opponent to the punch.

Links:
See my photos of Raiders of the North Sea.

Buy Raiders of the North Sea on 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” by Purple Planet.

Send us a text

In this episode, we board the Jolly Roger and steal from treasure from a Spanish galleon in Tortuga 1667!

In Tortuga 1667, players take on the role of pirates attacking Spanish ships near the island of Tortuga and stealing their gold. Half of the players are secretly working for the British and half for the French. At the start of the game, you know which team you’re on, but no one else does. As you play the game, triggering event cards, attacking the Spanish galleons, brawling on the island of Tortuga, and occasionally committing mutiny, you’ll start to figure out who is on which team. There’s treasure to be had in the game, and at the end of the game (triggered by the arrival of the Spanish armada) the team with the most treasure wins.

Tortuga 1667 has quickly become a favorite at our monthly game nights because of its quality production values, ability to handle high player counts (up to 9!), and the fun that can be had with hidden roles in the game. There can be a lot of chaos in the game, but usually also opportunities to use that chaos to your advantage, which sounds like the pirate’s life to me.

Links:

See my photos of Tortuga 1667.

Buy Tortuga 1667 on 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” by Purple Planet. “Pirates!” by Tabletop Audio.

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