This episode guest stars prolific and punny content creator Eric Yurko from What's Eric Playing?, a site full of fantastic board game photography and 1000+ (!) reviews. And as a founding committee member of the American Tabletop Awards (and a big fan of cocktails) Eric is THE go-to guy to talk games...especially which ones to play at which drinking establishments.

Timeline:

• 5:45 - Eric's game pick: Mists over Carcassonne.
• 11:39 - Shoe's game pick: Orichalcum.
• 18:00 - Christina's game pick: Great Western Trail: Argentina.
• 23:25 - Shoe's topic: Which American Tabletop Award winner would you keep?
• 36:40 - Christina's topic: Which games would you bring to a beer hall, vineyard, and cocktail bar?
• 56:45 - Eric's topic: What's our process for culling games?

We're a podcast! Therefore, we're contractually obligated to tell you our Games of the Year. But who wants to hear just Christina and Shoe squabble about their faves of 2022? Everyone would rather hear us and Mik and Starla from Our Family Plays Games squabble, so far be it for us to withhold this top-notch content from our listeners! So get ready for lots of discussions (and lots of yelling at Christina for cheating on her picks) in this episode!

Timeline:

Intro (before we get into the awards):

• 2:32 - Starla's game pick: Wonderland's War.
• 4:40 - Mik's game pick: Heat: Pedal to the Metal.
• 5:55 - Shoe's game pick: Keystone: North America.
• 8:37 - Christina's game pick: Blackout: Hong Kong.

The 2022 Games of the Year:

• 10:35 - Party games of 2022.
• 23:32 - Light games of 2022.
• 35:44 - Medium games of 2022.
• 50:22 - Heavy games of 2022.

Check out website to read the list of winners!

*Note: Our Family Plays Games is still working on their own Games of 2022, so their picks for this show are "as of today" but not necessarily final. Also, some games appear in different categories due to everyone's subjective opinions on weight.

For our 100th episode, we had to make sure everyone's topics were epic. So we rounded up some of the Going Analog crew, including OG contributor Nick Suttner and writer Henry Stenhouse, to discuss...

Timeline:

• 7:19 - Henry's topic: Board games that stand up to 100 plays...or more.
• 26:56 - Christina's topic: Your favorite board gaming moment ever.
• 39:22 - Shoe's topic: BoardGameGeek's top 100...save one game, kill one game, swap in one game.
• 1:02:32 - Nick's topic: Your favorite memory from 100 episodes of The Going Analog Podcast.

We're back from chilly Philly where the PAX Unplugged board game convention just wrapped up. It's our fourth con of the year -- you'd think we've seen it all by now but nope! There were still plenty of new board games to discover and try out.

With us to discuss the show are Kasey Girven (better known as Brain in a Jar) and Miguel Plylar-Moore (aka Johnny Deathhawk). They create/stream board game content -- and she's a neuroscientist! And they love to talk board gaming, so have a listen as we discuss...

Timeline:

• 3:29 - Shoe's game pick: Deal with the Devil
• 12:34 - Kasey's game pick: Electropolis
• 21:47 - Miguel's game pick: Bitoku
• 32:56 - Kasey's topic: The most exciting or promising games we saw at PAXU that aren't out yet
• 55:34 - Miguel's topic: The games we were surprised to see at PAXU and the ones we wish were there
• 1:05:50 - Shoe's topic: How does PAXU stack up to other board game cons?

We're back from BoardGameGeek's big show, BGG.CON 2022! Your hosts Christina and Shoe sit down to talk about their Top 10 games panel with Our Family Plays Games, stand-up comedy with Grant Lyon, our own live Board Game Quiz Show events, and of course, all the great games they got a chance to check out.

Timeline:

• 1:47 - BGG.Con highlights, including our live Board Game Quiz Show!
• 4:50 - Our Family Plays Games Top 10 games panel
• 8:21 - Grant Lyon's board game standup
• 12:09 - Exhibit Hall, Many Worlds Tavern
• 13:59 - Gaming stories
• 19:50 - BGG Top 5 games we played
• 20:07 - Starship Captains
• 27:13 - Lacrimosa
• 31:40 - Tiletum
• 36:40 - Atiwa
• 42:28 - Splendor Duel

We recently spent six solid days playing board games. Seriously. It was exhausting -- but amazingly fun.

We blame Going Analog contributor Jess Yi, who visited and forced us to play one board game after another. At the end, with bloodshot eyes and brains working at half speed, Shoe and Jess picked three games each to discuss. Hear their thoughts on...

Timeline:

• 2:52 - Knight Fall
• 11:02 - Star Wars: Rebellion, Stars Wars: Rebellion - Rise of the Empire
• 18:26 - Bequest
• 23:00 - My Father's Work
• 31:58 - Disney Sorcerer's Arena: Epic Alliances, Disney Sorcerer's Arena: Epic Alliances – Turning the Tide
• 44:40 - The Guild of Merchant Explorers

Can a board game kill ya? Nah...but Black Mold may try. This "co-op till it's not" survival-horror game has players taking as many actions as they can until they can no longer...hold their breath. You read that right.

So we have questions -- lots of questions -- for our guest John de Campos, CEO of Terrible games and co-designer of Black Mold.

Timeline:

2:37 - Oceans: Legends of the Deep

7:00 - Veiled Fate

11:59 - Keystone: North America

17:00 - Shoe's topic: What's up with Black Mold?

32:19 - Christina's topic: Other games with great/interesting pitches

46:59 - John's topic: Pairing the right music with your board games

Logic-deduction board game Turing Machine challenges players to figure out a secret code using innovative punch-card verifiers that layer atop each other to "magically" reveal clues. How does it work?!

We had to know, so we asked our guests from publisher Scorpion Masqué and Hachette Games to sit there and explain it to us. Oh, we also talk artwork and rulebooks, too.

Topics on this episode:

• Christina (host): How Turing Machine was made (14:43)
• Matthew (guest): What makes for good or bad rulebooks? (34:51)
• Danni (guest): How does artwork influence gameplay? (50:12)

Game designer Ryan Courtney loves making connections (if you've played Pipeline or Curious Cargo, then you know what we're talking about). His newest creation, Trailblazers from Bitewing Games has you -- you guessed it -- making and blazing connecting trails in nature.

We invited Ryan as well as Bitewing co-founder Nick Murray to join our podcast to talk about this new project, other games that travel well, and more.

Topics this episode:

• Christina (host): Games would you pack for travel (18:22)
• Nick (guest): Games that work well at all (stated) player counts (25:17)
• Ryan (guest): Heavy games and their matchmaking problems (40:18)

Gen Con 2022 saw the return of over 50,000 attendees (and four days of non-stop gaming) to Indianapolis -- and, most importantly, the return of Christina and Shoe to the big show! We invited Twitch streamer and content creator Amanda Panda to join us to discuss our experiences and the hot new games.

Topics this episode:

• Christina (host): Hot games of Gen Con (15:31)
• Amanda (guest): Lighter party games of Gen Con (34:16)
• Shoe (producer): Games that flew under the radar (50:34)