Poop! Spies! What do they have in common? Both are featured in board games designed by Jon Teixeira Moffat, naturally. On today’s Space-Cast!, we’re joined by Jon to discuss the long development of both Night Soil and Burned, the hidden cost of labor, and cinematic hidden movement games.

Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.

TIMESTAMPS

00:36 — introducing Jon Teixeira Moffat
4:06 — Stone Circle Games
7:00 — Night Soil
21:08 — portraying labor
33:15 — Burned

(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, supporters can read my first-quarter update of 2026: the best board games, movies, books, and more!)

Governance and Liberty — in translation, those are the titles of Shasn and Azadi, Zain Memon’s peculiar but timely board games about politics. Today, we’re joined by Memon himself to discuss both titles, plus the function of play as our most ancient form of education, the value of cynicism and evil in games, and what else the auteur has been working on lately.

Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.

TIMESTAMPS

00:50 — introducing Zain Memon, his work in film, and his transition to board games
13:30 — the “party game” of Shasn
21:45 — is there value in portraying cynicism or evil in games?
26:38 — games, one of our most ancient forms of education
31:22 — moving from Shasn to Azadi
42:49 — Macaraccoon
47:30 — representing resistance and revolution in Azadi
52:13 — Zain’s many forthcoming projects

(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, supporters can read about which films I watched in 2025, including some brief thoughts on each. That’s 44 movies! That’s a lot, unless you see, like, 45 or more movies in a year!)

Most people know Zach Barth as the founder of Zachtronics, purveyor of digital playthings such as SpaceChem, Opus Magnum, and EXAPUNKS. But we are not most people. Instead, we’re here to speak with Zach about his analog games: The Lucky Seven (with the Depot expansion), Chemistry Set, and the scratch-off puzzle pack Zach Attack! That’s right. We’ve got the good stuff.

Listen here or download here. Timestamps can be found after the jump.

TIMESTAMPS

00:30 — Zach Barth, the greatest puzzle maker alive? and the terminology of puzzles vs. games
9:10 — actually introducing Zach Barth
23:25 — getting into tabletop games via The Lucky Seven
48:30 — Chemistry Set
1:01:45 — at last, Zach Attack!
1:58:25 — can Dan fix Zach? (No. He is perfect just the way he is.)

(If what I’m doing at Space-Biff! is valuable to you in some way, please consider dropping by my Patreon campaign or Ko-fi. Right now, supporters can read about which films I watched in 2025, including some brief thoughts on each. That’s 44 movies! That’s a lot, unless you see, like, 45 or more movies in a year!)