Shelley and I check out two small-box games that provide a much bigger experience than their boxes might suggest.
First up is Allplay's tableau builder released earlier this year
Oddland by Dan Schumacher
then we check out a brand new Essen 2025 release
1975: White Christmas by Albert Reyes
Remember you can support this podcast and our video series by going to www.patreon.com/garrettsgames
OR check out the extensive list of games that no longer fit on our shelves, but belong on your table:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ovRDNBqur0RiAzgFAfI0tYYnjlJ68hoHyHffU7ZDWk/edit?usp=sharing
Remember to SUBSCRIBE!
On this flexibly numerical episode of the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast, Tom and Matt are, you guessed it, talking once again about games with CARDS, BOARDS, and DICE! In exactly that order - each game picking up a new component like a hungry Katamari.
First up is Duel for Cardia - a perplexing little two-player dueller that lets you hop back in time to un-win your opponent - swiftly followed by 20 Strong, a solo-only game of clobbering a wolf. Or escaping a dream! Or becoming an alien. It’s a modular game system, you see.
Finally, we’re chatting about Vantage - an open-world board game that’s one of 2025’s biggest! And Tom’s feeling all confused about it…
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Timestamps:
02:12 - Duel for Cardia
11:23 - 20 Strong
25:37 - Vantage
Opener: Please send in your comments, questions, or suggestions for next month's Feedback-focused episode Closer: When do you opt out of game night? Every year I pay special attention to Fairplay magazine's booth at Essen. In recent years, they've been great about sharing their Scoutaktion results on social media, too. Fairplay is primarily a German language print magazine for our hobby, but every year at Essen they do an additional service for our global hobby: they collect ratings for the first impressions of these new titles, and share them for all to see.
Here's what they reported last year. Notice anything? The top rated game in the expert category went on to win the Kennerspiel a year later, and the same thing happened with the top-rated family category game winning the Spiel des Jahres! The predictions for later success & staying power aren't always that accurate, but they're always pretty good. They are definitely worth watching. For this episode I go through the 10 top titles in each of this year's Expert and Family categories for Fairplay booth voting. They call these their Scoutaktion reports. I've been following these avidly for a quarter-century. Amazing!
Ambie and Crystal discuss a couple games they played recently, including Yggdrasil and Dreadful Meadows. Then, since it's still almost Halloween, we talk about games that have magic in them, whether it's fantasy magic or real magicians!
Check out TabletopLiveNetwork.com for more info on TLN, and catch Ambie's stream at twitch.tv/ambierona!
0:00-Intro
0:38-Announcements
1:22-Recent Games - Yggdrasil
7:09-Dreadful Meadows
12:14-Magical Games
25:07-Outro
26:03-Bloopers
Support us directly at https://ko-fi.com/boardgameblitz
Or shop at our merch store or our Amazon Storefront
This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Use the code "BLITZ10" to get 10% off your entire cart.
For the full show notes visit our site at http://www.boardgameblitz.com/posts/423
This episode is not about Bananagrams (at least, I don't think so), but it is about the price of things (though not Bananagrams specifically, shut up about Bananagrams). In a world where everything costs more, we're talking about the value of games, and how far a game has to go to justify its price. Before we decide if the price is right, we talk about The Presence, and River of Gold.
02:08 - The Presence 17:32 - River of Gold 27:03 - Board Game Pricing 27:59 - Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition - Thunder's Edge 33:20 - Biblios 34:15 - Agricola
Get added to the BGB community map at: https://boardgamebarrage.com/map
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It's your turn...to click here to send us your comments on the show
Becky takes us back in time when we had our first experiences of tabletop gaming and what our "gateway games" were that brought us in. Has those games defined our tastes, how did we step stone through to games we play today and do we still go back to them.
FIRST PLAYER: Becky
OTHER PLAYERS: JP, Rob & Dan
In this episode you'll learn:
- more about a Scout like card game called Odin by Helvetiq as Becky explains all
- how JP has been trying to stop children from freezing in Frostpunk by Glass Cannon Unplugged and failing miserably
- Rob has ventured deeper into the Lacerdaverse with his first impressions of The Weather Machine by Eagle-Gryphon Games
- Dan has busted out Nucleum: Australia for the first time and his thoughts
- about our gateway games and how they have influenced our journey through the hobby
LINKS REFERENCED IN THE SHOW
UpgradeMyGame Etsy Store as mentioned by Rob - https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/UpgradeMyGame
EPISODE CHAPTERS
0:00 - TURN 1 - Player Count
3:58 - TURN 2 - Let's Talk About Hex
4:10 - Rob - The Weather Machine
11:31 - Dan - Nucleum Australia
15:07 - JP - Frostpunk
24:01 - Becky - Odin
28:04 - TURN 3 - Main Event: The red carpet roll-out
35:15 - Did our gateway games shape our gaming tastes for today?
44:08 - Have we ever gone back to gateway games after delving into the heavy stuff
48:04 - Can playing gateway games still be rewarding?
1:01:40 - Do we still play our first gateway games?
1:12:13 - TURN 4 - Konn4ct F4ur
1:16:56 - TURN 5 - Penultimate Turn: What's Coming Up?
1:24:35 - TURN 6 - The Final Turn
You can check out JP's new podcast called Just Play right here https://www.justplaypod.co.uk we'd love to have you and also on the new YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@JustPlayPodcast
ENGAGING WITH THE SHOW
- Join us on Discord
"'Frederick Chopin was a Polish composer in the Romantic style who wrote primarily for the piano.'
I guess this is sort of interesting, as most facts are. But history has shown us that *facts are not what most humans believe.* They are not that which motivates most men and women to love to or to crime.
Now COMPARE this statement:
'Frederick Chopin was a Polish composer in the Romantic style who was obsessed with ladybugs, often letting dozens of them gallop over his neck, arms, and long, tapering fingers while playing the piano.'
Obviously the lie is so much more compelling. It also explains how Chopin finally got rid of his aphid problem."
-John Hodgman, "The Areas of My Expertise"
Games Played Last Week:
01:28 -Phoenix New Horizon (Jorge J. Barroso, Devir, 2024)
11:35 -Sweet Lands (Totsuca Chuo, uchibacoya, 2025)
23:42 -Voidfall (Nigel Buckle & Dávid Turczi, Mindclash Games, 2023)
29:35 -KINGs: TRICKTAKERs (Hiroken, Joyple Games, 2023)
32:58 -Yokai Septet (Muneyuki Yokouchi, Ninja Star Games, 2018)
36:56 -Origin Story (Jamey Stegmaier & Pete Wissinger, Stonemaier Games, 2025)
45:03 -Keep the Heroes Out!: Boss Battles (Luís Brueh, Brueh Games, 2024)
48:26 -Things in Rings (Peter C. Hayward, Allplay, 2024)
News (and why it doesn't matter):
54:26 Burned available on Gamecrafter's Crowdsale
54:49 Legacy of Mars' audacious release plan: 4 plays in base game
56:17 Did you observe Arkhipov Day on Oct. 27th? Celebrate Vasili Arkhipov and his having saved the human race!
56:56 Feature Game: Luthier (Dave Beck & Abe Burson, Paverson Games, 2025)
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Marty and Vanessa love the Arkham Horror universe. They play boardgames, card games and read the Arkham Horror novels from Aconyte Books.
In this bonus episode, they get the chance to interview one of their favorite authors, Rosemary Jones. She discusses how she got into writing Arkham Horror novels, the process and talks about her latest book, The Arcane Gamble of Harvey Walters.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Reviews of Speakeasy and Regicide Legacy. All the pegs chat about 2 player games.. Game discussion starts at {00:34:12}.
Thank you to our sponsors: Queen Games and Grand Gamers Guild.
The post Episode 296: Two Player Games appeared first on Blue Peg, Pink Peg Boardgaming Podcast.
This week we're coming to you from GERMANY! If you have missed any of our numerous VIDEO posts over on YouTube, be sure to go check them out here:
www.youtube.com/@garrettsgames
This week on the audio podcast Shelley and I check out two fun titles we got BEFORE the fair because they were the French versions:
Viva Catrina by Fred Boulle and Gregory Grard from The Flying Games
and
Arigato by Melodye Ladrat and Florian Sirieix from Ludonaute.
Check out our videos for each of these on YouTube and you can support the podcast by going to www.patreon.com/garrettsgames OR check out the extensive list of games that no longer fit on our shelves, but belong on your table:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16ovRDNBqur0RiAzgFAfI0tYYnjlJ68hoHyHffU7ZDWk/edit?usp=sharing
Anmelden
