Oak & Onion: Board Game Podcast

Joel and Chris strap on their space helmets this week and take a cruise to the far reaches of game design when they sit down with designer Ben Rosset and Dennis Northcott, one of the minds behind Kinson Key Games. With the recent launch of Excursions on Kickstarter, Ben and Dennis share the games that define them as well as their thoughts on game design, simultaneous action, running a successful game company, and more. And what interview would be complete without Chris putting them through their paces in a brand new game set against a ticking clock? Will they be successful? Only one way to find out! Download, give us a listen, and then pop on over to the Excursions Kickstarter and see if it’s a game for you!

Joel and Chris might be small potatoes, but sometimes we bring in the big potatoes to show us how it's done. In episode 22 we sit down with actor, standup, board game designer, and all-around cool guy Grant Lyon. We’ll hear about the games that define him, his approach to comedy, how he stumbled into board game stardom, and his brand new comedy tour blending games with standup. Then Chris puts Grant through the paces with a travel-themed game perfect for a man on the road. We may not be as funny as Grant, but if he’s willing to show up and chat with us, that’s something, right? Right?!

Get out your pumpkin spice sweaters and curl up with a cozy hand knit latte as you tune in for another episode of the Oak and Onion Podcast. Enjoy Chris’s envy as Joel has the big gaming weekend for once, then pull out your notecards for another installment of Board Games 101, where we snuggle up to find out what people mean by Cozy Games. Then we wrap things up with our top five games with an autumnal theme (spoiler alert: turns out, we don’t know a lot of games with an autumnal theme). Whether it’s cooling down where you are or still a thousand degrees like where Chris is, it’s always the right season for Oak and Onion! Join us!

If you’ve been with us since the beginning, then this is now 20 times you’ve tuned in to hear a little Oak and Onion action, and as excited as we are to hit that milestone, we’re especially excited for how many people have joined us on that journey. Thank you, listeners! On this celebratory episode, Joel and Chris talk spooky movies, superhero tv, and games we’ve played this week. Listen in as we give each other 20th anniversary gifts and then travel back to 2020 for a look at how the pandemic impacted our gaming habits followed by a 3-2-1 exploration of the hits and misses of that year. Twenty episodes in? We’re just getting started!

Joel and Chris decide to opt out of torturing each other with games this week and instead simply offer up a few choice rounds of This or That. Then it’s a long overdue look at the highlight reel where we see fresh life in the crowdfunding scene now that GenCon is a month behind us. All that and more in an episode so jam packed Joel forgets to even finish writing the show notes! It’s another can’t miss episode of two guys talkin’ board games to their own amusement!

In this episode, Chris and Joel live in the past, celebrating games and movies from the past week, recounting games from one of our favorite years passed, and mourning people who passed this week as well. Then Joel tests Chris’s board game component knowledge in the cleverly titled “What’s in a Game,” which doesn’t have a clever “past” phrase to go with it, but hey, you can’t have everything. 

In a world where games are outlawed, only outlaws play games. Two men stand against the forces of board game snobbery. From the studio that brought you “The Bald Cohost” and “Mr. Roll and Write” comes an episode where everything gets turned upside down. A friendship. A switcheroo. A game. Nothing will ever be the same. Tune in to episode 17 and find out what happens when games become movies and movies become games. Opens wide August 26.

The dynamic duo is back again to talk all things two player. Or at least SOME things two player. Despite the challenge of getting back into work mode, Joel pulls it together long enough to teach Chris about Canadian tv, and in return Chris brings Joel up to date on the next Texas Chainsaw in his rewatch. But the heart of the episode is a dive into two player games, first by discussing multiplayer games that shine at two players, and then by counting down our top five two player games–at least this year. Will every game on the list be a duel version of some classic title? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Join us as we take a trip to Hadestown as we lament the things we missed at GenCon and celebrate the things we enjoyed at GenCan’t. Then grab your dice and uncap your dry erase markers for our first true Top Five list as Joel and Chris discuss our top five roll and write games. We wrap up the episode with a brief discussion of when to believe a game box’s listed player count. Gather all your friends and listen in, because one thing without a maximum player count is the Oak and Onion podcast!

Choo-choo! The Hype Train is leaving GenCon station! Joel and Chris hype up the Vans Warped Tour, the Tabletop Inn, and the Garphill trilogies–and that’s all before we even get to our topic of conversation: is hype an external problem or an internal one, and what games would we describe as overhyped, underhyped, or appropriately hyped? We wrap up our hype episode with a game of Slice and Dice, where we read terrible reviews of great games. So prepare for the ballyhoo, listen to the hoopla, and boost your anticipation for an episode designed to make your excitement levels skyrocket. Can you smell what the hype is cooking?