In Episode 9, Mark and Jake talk about our favorite “in the box” gaming upgrades. They talk about component upgrades, inserts, metal coins, and lots of other bling. As usual, they discuss games they played including Through the Ages, The Estate, Troyes, Bohnanza, Doppelt So Clever, and many more.

We all travel with our games – Mark and Jake more than most. They discuss their favorite games for travel and tips on how to transport them. Mark deep-dives into his Ultimate Travel Games Case. (Photos and List at gamingmoguls.com!) Also – discussions on “Architects of the West Kingdom”, “Tokyo Highway”, and “Sherlock Holmes”. Merch?!? Anyone interested?

Jake and Mark look deeper into a pile of games that they played this week. It’s a pretty heavy line-up including their thoughts on 1846, 18Lilliput, Leaving Earth, and The Gallerist. Oh, and Mag-Blast. PEW PEW PEW! We play the fun game of “Teaching Game or Not” while we recap. Also – we’re on Twitter now at GamingMoguls!

Jake and Mark deep dive into their least favorite type of games – cooperative games. They examine the attributes of coop games that they don’t enjoy and give examples of games they don’t enjoy. They then discuss a number of cooperative games that not only don’t suck – are actually favorites of Mark and Jake and why they are are different.

As usual, they recap games they played including Leaving Earth, Deep Space D6, and a bunch of 18xx online games.

Mark and Jake dive in to a melange of topics this week. After reviewing the games they played, including:

• Viticulture
• North American Railways
• Northern Pacific
• 18Lilliput
• Gugong

Next up, they talk about Print and Play (PnP) and Mark’s bespoke copy of 1889. Finally, a philosophical discussion about collections and how to manage them – and how to efficiently trade old games for new ones.

Oink Games is a publisher of great small box games with amazing design and gameplay that is as good as the design.

Mark and Jake own one of the largest collections of Oink Games in the US and we run them all down in chronological order. We own 18 of the 25 total titles – and we discuss our thoughts on all that we’ve played or own.

We wrap it up with a discussion on where to obtain the games – https://gumshoe.com/oinkgames and Amazon.co.jp.

Finally – we pick our favorites!

Mark and Jake recap their year in gaming in 2018.

1:50 – We start by giving a quick recap of the games we played during the past week – DIG, 51st State, Blend Coffee Lab, Ganz Schon Clever, and Le Havre.

12:15 – We give a quick update on our online 18xx games and discuss 1867, 18Ireland, 1880, and 1828

17:12 – Next they review their top 3 favorite 2018 releases followed by the best games we played in 2018 regardless of release year.

49:05 – We look back at our records on BG Stats and review our 2018 gaming history – then put out some goals for 2019.

58:09 – Finally – we pick 5 games out of each others collection that we’d love to play more in 2019 and why we are excited about them.

Mark and Jake continue their “further down the rabbit hole” gaming adventure this week by discussing a variety of board gaming topics.

“What we played this week” – discussions and thoughts on Root, Lisboa, Dice Fishing,  Gans Schon Clever, 13 Days, and a quick comparison between Trade on the Tigris and Sidereal Confluence.  We give a quick update on online 18xx gaming including completing our game of 1850.

Jake continues to show his ignorance of the true definition of “Shelf of Shame” as we break down angst around titles we own but may or may not still be in shrink wrap.  We discuss some of the games that are causing us stress due to the dust gathering on the shrinkwrap.

What happens when a neural network learns about board game titles and starts to generate them?  Hilarity ensues – and Mark wishes most were real games.

Is Heavy better?  We deep dive into statistics, math, data manipulation, and confirmation bias as we reflect on the Boardgamegeek.com Top 100 and it’s tendency to overvalue heavier and more complex games.