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We’re downsizing, imagining a brigher future where we don’t have hundreds of games to fret about not playing, but a very slight, extremely manageable twenty. Some say it can’t be done, but that’s never stopped us before. Before we get low, we talk about After you, Betobeto-san, Skull Queen, and Star Trek: Captain’s Chair – To Boldly Go.

If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.

If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!

Timecodes:

01:53 – After you, Betobeto-san
09:11 – Skull Queen
17:21 – Star Trek: Captain’s Chair – To Boldly Go
28:12 – Minimalist board game collections

Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.

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We love a good old game – there are a lot that of games over a decade old that we’d happily sing the praises of, but if we were being brutally honest, how many of them do we think would make it in today’s markets? How much have tastes really moved on since these games were in their prime? Before we let nostalgia get the better of us, we talk about I’m Out, Evenglow, and Trials of Maya.

If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.

If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!

Timecodes:

03:08 – I’m Out
09:28 – Evenglow
13:32 – Trials of Maya
29:40 – If old games were released today
31:29 – Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
39:14 – War of the Ring: Second Edition
42:22 – Terraforming Mars
44:30 – Star Wars: Rebellion
46:41 – Twilight Struggle
48:01 – The Castles of Burgundy
50:08 – Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization
52:37 – Great Western Trail
54:02 – Brass: Lancashire
57:52 – 7 Wonders Duel
59:51 – Scythe

Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.

Ares Games is considering bolstering its website protection after suffering its first ever DDoS attack, which it says left its site inaccessible for about 10 hours across three days of difficulties.

The Italy-based War of the Ring publisher said thousands of fake requests repeatedly saturated its server bandwidth and CPU earlier this week, temporarily preventing some customers from reaching its main website and e-commerce site, which is also used for preorders and crowdfunding pledge management.

Ares director of production Roberto di Meglio told BoardGameWire no customer data was compromised during the cyber attack, adding that he was inclined to believe the company was targeted randomly rather than specifically.

He said, “It’s difficult to assess the exact monetary loss in terms of missed orders. We can assume most of the potential customers affected by the issue will probably come back at a later moment, so the revenue should be delayed but not lost – especially if the customer was visiting for something specific, like a pre-order or pledge manager.”

Ares’ e-commerce infrastructure supports ordinary direct sales alongside preorders and crowdfunding activity. The publisher has continued to use crowdfunding extensively, with its 16th Kickstarter project, Mega Empires: The Far East, completing its campaign earlier this year.

The DDoS attack comes after Ares said last year that it was developing its direct sales business to help offset reduced profits through traditional distribution channels amid the US tariff volatility.

Di Meglio told BoardGameWire at the time that the company planned a combination of reduced inventories, increased prices and product selection alongside “developing our direct sales to make up for the loss of profit through the traditional distribution tiers”.

While Ares has experienced other hacking attempts previously, Di Meglio said this was the publisher’s first DDoS attack. Its server administrators introduced additional security rules in response, and Ares is now considering whether to add further protection such as a DNS proxy service like Cloudflare.

But he added, “The main concern is that every rule or system you implement to stop this type of ‘swarm’ attack potentially might stop or slow down a regular visitor, so you have to find the best compromise between keeping danger out and allowing customers in.”

The incident comes as DDoS attacks have become more numerous and larger across the internet. Web application security and performance giant Cloudflare recently said it detected a 519% increase in hyper-volumetric DDoS attacks across its network during the first half of 2026.

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