Harvest Phase

In a Harvest Phase first, we recorded  a full 2 hour episode and then scrapped it and recorded another.  This Massively Multiplayer Online RPG inspired episode sees us discussing some of our experiences with Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy XI, and Final Fantasy XIV, and how we see some key MMO mechanisms in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Adventure Tactics: Domianne’s Tower, and Too Many Bones. Somehow in this conversation I get talking about Shawn Michaels, Sweet Chin Music, and I accidentally say the Rockers were comprised of Marty Jannetty and Bret Hart (For shame).  

Featured Games:
21:08 World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (Alexander Ortloff, Justin Kemppainen, Michael Sanfilippo, Z-Man Games)
43:53 Adventure Tactics: Domianne’s Tower (Nicholas Yu, Letiman Games)
1:09:10 Too Many Bones (Adam Carlson, Josh Carlson, Chip Theory Games)

Oddly focused, we’re back in the saddle to discuss coffee catastrophes, excellent local escape room experiences, escape room experiences in a box, the tutorial of Cantaloop, echoes: The Cocktail, and Wild Space. Our featured game this week is Great Western Trail, and then we decide not to do an Off-Brand as we are a bit long winded on the games discussion.


Fresh Plays:
Cantaloop: Book 1 - Breaking into Prison (Friedemann Findeisen, Lookout Games) (kinda)  12:15
echoes: The Cocktail (Matthew Dunstan, Dave Neale, Ravensberger) 24:10
Wild Space (Joachim Thome, Pandasaurus Games) 36:00

Featured Game:
Great Western Trail (Second Edition) (Alexander Pfister, eggertspiele) 47:00

Brian Lewis is back to talk about our design process for Dinosaur World, but before we do that, we discuss his life long love affair with Magic: The Gathering, how he hasn’t seen Hackers,  why we are drawn to “old” games, and if it is acceptable to leave pizza out all night and then eat it the next day. We then discuss our lone play of Floor Plan and spill the beans on the Dino Design Process.

Fresh Plays:
Floor Plan (Marek Tupi, Deep Water Games)

Dinosaur World Design Diary:
The story of how a roll N’ write became an expansion and then a stand alone board game.
 
Off Brand Lightning Round - What We’ve Been Watching:
Schmigadoon
What We Do In The Shadows
Survivor Season 41 (Spoilers through Episode 3)

Gaming resumes in full force as we take a look at Wok and Roll, Horrified: American Monsters, and Khora: Rise of an Empire. We also usher in October but determining that ghosts are swimming...always. Get lost in our tales of matching symbols to make quality Asian cuisine, matching symbols to take down cryptids, and matching symbols to launch a fleet of a thousand ships. We then beg you to watch the finest television show ever produced. Listen for the symbol matching, stay for the alerts.

Fresh Plays:
Roll and Write Lightning Round:
22:32 Wok and Roll (Daryl Chow, Origame)
Ganz Schön Clever (That’s Pretty Clever) (Wolfgang Warsch, Stronghold Games)
Fleet: The Dice Game (Ben Pinchback and Matt Riddle, Eagle Gryphon Games)
Second Chance (Uwe Rosenberg, Stronghold Games)

Games of the Week:
37:25 Horrified: American Monsters (Michael Mulvihill, Ravensburger)
59:05Khora: Rise of an Empire (Headquarter Simulation Game Club, Iello)

Off-Brand
1:36:30 The Circle (Netflix)

Another busy week sees us playing fewer games, but still not running out of nonsense to talk about. Expect our signature stories, detours, and of course,  discussions about games. Despite talking about The Beatles, we fail to connect the band to dexterity game Kabuto Sumo, where you play as wrestling beetles. Then we discuss one of our surprise GenCon pickups with Richard Garfield’s The Hunger (part Clank!, part commentary on the dietary habits of vampires). On Off-Brand we discuss our love of the television show Survivor and our excitement for season 41 that started last week. Grab your torches, and head back to camp. Good night.

Games Discussed:
Kabuto Sumo (Tony Miller, Board Game Tables)
The Hunger (Richard Garfield, Renegade Games Studio)

Off-Brand:
Survivor Season 41

We unravel tales about our experience at Gen Con. Discuss food trucks, exhibit halls, the fears of demoing your own game, and what we picked up. In the ensuing chaos we somehow craft the definitive Top Ten List of Five Perfect Games and the Top Ten List of One Underrated Games. We did play one game of Cascadia this week, and we give our thoughts while comparing it to Calico. Pardon the lack of time stamps, but this one goes places.

Gen Con Pick Ups Discussion:
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition (Stronghold Games)
Quest (Indie Boards and Cards)
The Search For Planet X New Horizons Upgrade Pack (Renegade Game Studio)
The Hunger (Renegade Game Studio)
Wok and Roll (Origame)
Khora: Rise of an Empire (Iello)
Great Western Trail (Eggertspiele)
Irish Gauge (Capstone Games)
Ride the Rails (Capstone Games)
Iberian Gauge (Capstone Games)

A Solid 15 Minutes on Cascadia:
Cascadia (AEG)

We have friend and game designer Brian Lewis on to discuss some of his favorite games, inspiration as a game designer, how we all met, and some the origins of Dinosaur Island. During the second half, we discuss the influences on Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘N Write. We reference Fleet: The Dice Game, Uwe Rosenberg (Surprise!) the awesome feedback and play testing during Gen Con 2019, and how a piece of graph paper suddenly turned into a game. I started this episode wanting to ask the hard question, had Brian ever had anyone in his life call him “Bry” only to forget while we were actually discussing games. However, I asked after recording and the answer was a resounding, “no”. 

Another super fast week sees us playing a handful of new games and breaking out some old classics. We attempt to deduce why I am so successful at finding Planet X, wonder how to mind slip through the work week, realize that our prowess at a board game about cooking does not translate into the kitchen, and wonder why we should make wine when you can give tours of a barren wasteland and still achieve a commendable score. In addition, a legend is created while using sand timers to create A Feast for Odin. Off Brand is a long winded conversation about our Marvel movie fatigue, before making no argument beyond, Aerosmith, a cymbal crash, and muscle cars, for why Dazed and Confused has the greatest opening scene in cinema history, and we beg you to watch Free Solo and marvel at Alex Honnold. Also, there is a theory that Adam Driver and Alex Honnold in one room breaks international hunkiness laws.

Fresh Plays:
07:20 Mind MGMT: The Psychic Espionage (Jay Cormier, Sen-Foong Lim, Off the Page Games)
20:45 Kitchen Rush (Vangelis Bagiartakis, David Turczi, Pegasus Spiele)
34:06 Viticulture (Jamey Stegmaier, Alan Stone, Stonemaier Games)

Featured Game:
55:53 A Feast for Odin (Uwe Rosenberg, Z-Man Games)

Off Brand - Unabashed Nonsense About The Movies (Watch Free Solo)
1:42:00 

It’s been an exhausting week, and it’s only Tuesday. We gather tiles to score points, auction things to score points, and silently contemplate (off mic and through gestures) if Monikers is PG13 or R rated. Off Brand takes the week off, but our usual nonsense is even more nonsensical as we make every effort to keep focus amid our lack of sleep and complete exhaustion.

Fresh Plays:
03:40 Sushi Go Party (Phil Walker-Harding)
11:05 Monikers (Alex Hague, Justin Vickers, CMYK)
24:18  dude. (Beau Beckett, Jeph Stahl, North Star Games)
26:40 Overboss (Aaron Mesburne, Kevin Russ, Brotherwise Games)

Featured Game:
41:41 Nidavellir (Serge Laget, GRRRE Games)
57:32 Q.E. (Gavin Birnbaum, BoardGameTables.com)

Off Brand - Taking the Week Off

While playing Calico, Riverboat, Impact, and Alien, we discover that courting cats to take naps on lovely quilts is far more anxiety inducing than, managing a farm on the Mississippi, wrestling a Xenomorph on a derelict spacecraft, and creating the entire cosmos. We then theorize that the cat on the cover of Calico is, in fact, the untold fate of Jonesy, the Nostromo’s ship cat. Finally, in Off Brand we discuss how we feel some games “respect” the player through design decisions, and I rant about my love-hate relationship with Returnal, while coming to terms with the fact I’ll never “get gud.”

Cover: Our ship cat, Freyja, doing her best Xenomorph impression. Seriously, who sits like that?

Fresh Plays:
07:06 Calico (Kevin Russ, Flat Out Games, Renegade Games)
21:00 Riverboat (Micheal Kiesling, Lookout Games)
31:35 Impact: Battle of the Elements (Dieter Nüßle, Ravensberger)

Featured Game:
41:06 Alien: Fate of the Nostromo (Scott Rogers, Ravensberger)

Off Brand - Can a Game Disrespect the Player?
1:08:05 Alien: Fate of the Nostromo addendum
1:10:40 Returnal (Housemarque, PlayStation 5)
1:42:32 A Short Hike (Adam Robinson-Yu, Nintendo Switch)