Fort Circle Games takes history very seriously...but not overly so. Titles like Votes for Women and The Halls of Montezuma treat their subject matters with respect (the women's suffrage movement and the Mexican-American War, respectively) with research, consultants, and even facsimiles of documents.

It might sound a little dry, but Fort Circle is on a mission: to bring this knowledge to gamers while adhering to modern game-design sensibilities. They want you to learn a thing or three...while having fun.

We invited Fort Circle founder and owner Kevin Bertram to talk more about his company's interesting philosophy and how games can be educational, without necessarily being educational games.

Timeline:

• 2:38 - Going Analog's game pick: Behind the Lens: Photographing Earth.
• 6:50 - Kevin's game pick: Fortress America.
• 8:52 - More about Fort Circle Games.
• 17:52 - Kevin's topic: The educational value of board games.

We're back from Dice Tower West, horribly dehydrated and almost 200 games lighter. While we offloaded a lot of our collection at the convention's flea market, we did get to play a bunch of new games (super shoutout to Grant's Game Recs for showing us the majority of them). So it's only a matter of time before we start buying more games to fill in those sad gaps on our shelves.

Listen or watch to see what's got us excited after five days of conventioning!

Timeline:

• 3:02 - Shoe's game pick: Pantheauction.
• 5:56 - Christina's game pick: Bullseye.
• 11:30 - Going Analog's topic: The best games we played from Dice Tower West 2026.

Our guest this week is crazy enough to include his personal phone number in every game he sells. Brent Beck (aka "Grandpa Beck" of Grandpa Beck's Games) wants no barriers when it comes to learning his games, so he includes his digits in every copy in case you want to text him for rules clarifications.

That's why his chosen topic -- bringing people together through gameplay -- makes so much sense. Brent wants nothing more but to draw people to him and each other to enjoy the hobby he loves so much.

Listen/watch as we discuss his work and play philosophies, how many texts from customers he gets per day, and more.

Timeline:

• 3:03 - Going Analog's game pick: Pandora's Legacy.
• 5:48 - Grandpa Beck's game pick: Mille Bornes.
• 11:03 - Grandpa's Beck's topic: Bringing people together through gameplay.

We had to bring in this episode's guest to settle something. In our 2025 Games of the Year show, Christina called Wine Cellar a runner-up for her Party Game of the Year. Shoe took issue with her calling the wine-making card game a "party game," so whom better to bring in than its designer, Andrew Stiles, to settle this hugely important argument?

He has a great topic for us, too. Since he gets to playtest so many games for his colleagues, he goes over several he's particularly excited to see finally released this year. And since we get to preview many titles ourselves, we get in on the conversation. Listen to see what we think are the most exciting games to watch for in 2026.

Timeline:

• 7:55 - Going Analog's game pick: Snow Colony.
• 11:12 - Andrew's game pick: Castles of Mad King Ludwig.
• 15:41 - Andrew's topic: 2026 games we've played and are excited about.

It's our yearly tradition now: We invite a new content creator on our show, and we discuss the best games of the year in several weight categories. Joining us for our 2025 edition is Candice Harris, formerly of BoardGameGeek and now doing her own thing with Kickin' It Creative. She's just as board game crazy as we are, so check out what we thought were the best of the year.

Timeline:

The 2025 Games of the Year (hit up our website for the full list of winners and runners-up):

• 7:06 - 2025 Party Games of the Year.
• 18:10 - 2025 Light Games of the Year.
• 33:38 - 2025 Medium Games of the Year.
• 50:55 - 2025 Heavy Games of the Year.

We're back (and so is our guest, Grant Lyon of Grant's Game Recs) with a bunch more new 2-player games that we loved and want to tell you alllll about. Make sure to catch part 1 of our two-part special, so you can have more 2P recommendations than you'll know what to do with.

Timeline:

• 1:28 - Going Analog's game pick: Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game.
• 7:45 - Grant's game pick: How to Save a World. Great 2-player games, part two:
• 15:02 - Everdell Duo.
• 18:31 - Kinfire Delve.
• 27:00 - Timber Town.
• 30:12 - Naishi.
• 32:54 - Zenith.
• 40:02 - Pillars of Fate.

2025 is "The Year of the 2-Player Game" -- at least according to our guest, professional comedian and board game content creator Grant Lyon of Grant's Game Recs. There have been so many good ones that came out over the past yeart that it's hard to refute that statement. So hard that, rather than refute, we'll just create a two-part podcast special covering all the great 2P games we've been playing. This is part one!

Timeline:

• 2:00 - Going Analog's game pick: Origin Story.
• 9:38 - Grant's game pick: Pinched!. Great 2-player games, part one:
• 16:50 - The White Castle Duel.
• 19:59 - Madcala.
• 25:35 - Enthrone.
• 29:19 - Compile: Main 2.
• 35:33 - Scales of Fate.
• 39:17 - Bombastic.

Our favorite "just playing games" convention is behind us now, and...we did spend a lot of time just playing games. A LOT. BGG.CON features BoardGameGeek's legendary library plus the latest hotness from the king of board game shows, Essen Spiel, so we had no shortage of options. Listen in to see what our highlights were and to get a tease of what we have in store for Season 6 of The Board Game Quiz Show.

A lot of drafting games have been hitting our table lately, and they're all putting their own twists on the genre. We've been enjoying them so much that we're dedicating this whole episode to our top picks.

Plus, the sequel to Yomi, is here. Shoe's played a lot of fighting (video) games, so what does he think about probably the most pure card-game interpretation around?

Timeline

• 0:53 - Going Analog's game pick: Yomi 2.
• 7:54 - 6 new drafting games worth checking out.

All this business (or loss of) around tariffs has repeated raised a question from the gaming community: Why not just manufacture games in the U.S. instead of, say, China?

James Hudson, game designer and owner of Druid City Games, took time out of promoting his Wonderland's War Duel Kickstarter (check out our preview!) to explain why it's so difficult. We've heard the facts from the board game industry before, but James has additional insight worth hearing out.

Timeline

• 1:30 - Going Analog's game pick: Everbloom.
• 4:58 - James' game pick: Galileo Galilei.
• 11:35 - Wonderland's War Duel, a new Wonderland's War expansion, Madcala, Off With Their Heads!, and an expansion to Tidal Blades 2.
• 22:03 - James' topic: Why making board games in America is so difficult.