This week's guest is owner of Crafty Games, Alex Flagg. We talk about gentrification, the RPG world and rendering Brandon Sanderson into ludological form...but which games did he choose?
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…
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
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
Greetings Cabalists and happy Halloween! Tonight the Mysteries of the Unknown dares to uncover The Van Meter Visitor! Was it a monster from another world? A beast born of science gone mad? Or something far more terrifying… lurking in the skies above small-town America?! Join Tony, Don, Steve, Bender, and Jamie as they descend into the chilling depths of High Strangeness! So bolt your doors… dim the lights… and pour yourself a brimming cup of courage - for tonight, you’ll hear the unbelievable true tale of American Horror! The Van Meter Visitor 00:32:22
In this episode Uli and Ben are joined are joined by owner of everything, Corey Thompson and Leder Games stalwart Anne Kinner to discus Essen Spiel. Enjoy!
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
"'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)
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.
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:
Anmelden
