Were you planning on attending HeavyCon 8, but were suddenly waylaid by inter-dimensional adventurers, desperately requiring your help to find the Lost Artifact of Borthax? No worries! That's a perfectly valid excuse.

The rest of you lot, though? Shame. SHAME.

To offer some proper motivation for you to attend next year, here are Edward and Martin the Elder with a recap of all the good times that were had, and some Ask the Elephant questions sprinkled in for good measure.

According to experts, all eight (YES, EIGHT) planets are likely to line up within 1 degree every 13.4 trillion years. Given that our solar system only formed around 4.6 billion years ago, this has probably never happened. Given that our sun has about another 5 billion years of life left in it, it'll also probably never happen. 

Similarly, the perfect game night has roughly the same odds. So, let's all close our eyes and imagine what it would be like if everything in your life aligned, and you were finally able to get that game to the table, with the people you've always wanted to play it with, and your own little spacetime-bending bubble to play it in. (It's OK if you tear up just a little at the thought.)

We also talk about the games we've been playing lately in much more cosmically mundane times. Enjoy the show!

• In the Shadows: Resistance in France 1943-1944
• Ora et Labora
• Knarr
• Forbidden Stars
• Solo RPGs (Courier - Repacked Edition, Home, Eleventh Beast)
• Kohle & Kolonie
• Sykes-Picot

Timestamps:

00:00 - If Everything Was Perfect

34:27 - What Are We Playing?

Another week, another rummaging through Davis' closet for another mix of Roundtable Replays. This week, we've got discussions from Swedish nation-builder Pax Penning, brewery-builder Bier Pioniere, Bolshevik railway-builder Age of Steam's Stalinist Russia map, and Capitalist hotel-builder Acquire. 

As a bonus treat, we have Local Really Interesting Guy Joe Huber in the studio during the Acquire session to charm us with tales of the inimitable Sid Sackson, who you may know as the designer of the family game from a parallel universe, Acquire. (The "whooshing" sound you hear is the time it takes for Joe to play an entire game of Acquire.)

Games Discussed:

• 02:06 - Pax Penning
• 19:22 - Bier Pioniere
• 38:11 - Age of Steam: Stalinist Russia
• 56:11 - Acquire (w/ Joe Huber)

This week, Edward, Shrey, and Kyle tell us all about their journey to exotic Upstate New York for the Gathering of Fiends, in which evildoers around the world get together over 11 days to discuss the best ways to subjugate and/or destroy the... oh, wait. 

Hang on one second. 

OK... I'm just now hearing that this is, in fact, a Gathering of FRIENDS. That is... substantially different. Since I have no idea what goes on at that kind of thing, it's fortunate that these guys are here to tell us all about it. 

PRODUCTION NOTE: You might notice some hiccups and other sound wobbliness in this one. The gremlins responsible for this issue have been hurled into the sun, and shouldn't be a problem for Episode 3.

This week, we have the first volume of Davis' Mixtape. Davis is our lovable, slightly corpulent mascot, and for this first volume, he's prepared a Roundtable Replay, which is a collection of roundtable discussions we've had recently - all assembled in one place for you to enjoy in a purely audio format. Don't come in expecting any kind of ASMR, though. None of us have that soothing a voice.

Games Discussed:

• 01:53 - The Lord of the Rings Trick-Taking Game
• 22:15 - A Gest of Robin Hood
• 37:27 - Shackleton Base
• 1:01:34 - Railways of the Lost Atlas

In this, the inaugural episode of a new era of Heavy Cardboard Podcasting, we ponder the nature of the Filler Game. What does that even mean?

We also talk about the games we've been playing recently, most of which have been featured on the Heavy Cardboard YouTube channel!

• (00:00) - - What Even Is a Filler?

• Maglev Metro
• Bier Pioniere
• Dilluvia Project
• Agricola
• Oranges & Lemons
• Shackleton Base
• Railways of the Lost Atlas
• Power Grid

An announcement of things to come. Get excited!