Meeple Overboard!

Black Orchestra is a cooperative game about the attempts to assassinate Hitler. It's definitely a unique theme, so we review how it plays. We also discuss the movies we watched this summer, starting from Infinity War and going to Crazy Rich Asians. And we talk about how we keep our collection in just two cabinets. 

Ahh, Mars, the Big Apple, as they call it. Can we turn it more into a mossy, moldy fruit ready for human life?  This is going off the rails. Join us as we review Terraforming Mars, talk about different ways games can have variability in games, and talk about Gustav Holst's orchestral suite, the Planets!

Can you ruin a board game title by changing, adding, or removing one letter?  Check out what people did to Wasteland Empress Delivery Service, or March of the Pants. Then we discuss what it means to be a Disney Princess, since our daughter is three years old and that's a part of life now. Lastly, we review Reef by Emerson Matsuuchi and Next Move Games, a subdivisoin of Plan B Games.

Join us around the table and learn a little about the history of how Meeples, Miniatures, and Dice are made! Also, we talk about veggie puns, inspired by our local grocery store stickers that our 3 year-old gets, and then we review Gizmos, by Phil Walker-Harding!  Enjoy!

Some games end as you expect them to, and others are tense right until the very end!  Today, one of our listeners recommended a Top 5 list topic for us, Top 5 games that end with tons of excitement and suspense! It's going to be a fun list of good games, so come on down and check it out! Share with us your favorite suspenseful endings too!

We sat down with Shem Phillips, designer of the North Sea trilogy and the forthcoming Architects of the West Kingdom, and Tim & Kristin Devine, designers of the forthcoming North Sea Epilogues! Want to learn more about this RPG system that's hitting Kickstarter on September 12th? You're in the right place. Get the inside scoop today, and mark your calendars! Also, do you want to hear an actual podcast play of the North Sea Epilogues system? Go check out Victory Condition Gaming on YouTube, and upcoming episodes of Roll to Play, Modifier, and Party of One podcasts.

We got to sit down with Timm Metivier who will become a bit bigger of a name, as he is now one of the co-organizers of the brand new Dice Tower West. This is the new board game convention in collaboration with The Dice Tower to create a bigger board game convention in the West. Timm has done a lot of great things, so he shares a lot of great stories and insights with us!  Tickets for Dice Tower West go on sale Tuesday September 4th at 9am PST.  Grab 'em while they're hot!

Ever wanted to know how board games are made? We'll tell you some of the interesting bits we learned. Also, why do Awful and Awesome mean polar opposites?  Lastly, we review Istanbul the Dice Game by Rudiger Dorn and published by AEG.

If you know us, you know we love the simple and engaging designs of Phil Walker-Harding, a designer out of Australia. Well be prepared to inject your ear holes with the great sounds of him being interviewed by us. We discuss his upcoming game, Gizmos, talk about his design history, and learn a little about himself. Enjoy!

What games from one, two, or even ten years ago have you wanted to play but just haven't been able to yet? We revisit this topic from a year ago, originally recommended by Wayne Schliegel. Another listener mentioned we should come back to this topic every year or so, so here we are, a year later, following up on the original list, and adding a new 5 that we want to play. Off we go!

We finally did it. We finally played the longest, biggest game of our list of games we've wanted to try in our life. Want to hear our thoughts? You came to the right place!  We're also talking about curbing your criticism, and reviewing Welcome To by Deepwater Games. Happy listening!

It's the big 75, and we're reviewing the newest Century game from Emerson Matsuuchi and Plan B Games, Century: Eastern Wonders. How is this follow-up to the acclaimed Century: Spice Road?  Well, there's still spices, but there's no road. There's an ocean of islands for you to go about and ...still trade cubes. But it's fun. Check out our full thoughts!

We're going back in time and reviewing a classic game, Lords of Waterdeep. This game put Worker Placement on the map (pun intended) for a lot of folks, so how does it hold up six years later? Also, we discuss a little about the history of Roll and Write games and what makes them fun. Also, in honor of Wendy's birthday, we talk about birthdays around the world. Cheers!

Chris and Wendy go over their Top 5 light games. These games can be simple to play, easy to teach, easy to grasp for new players, playable in 10-30 minutes perhaps. We'll talk a bit about how we define a light game, and give our top 5 list. Share with us what your favorite light games are!

I feel the need, the need for building an engine of goods conversion to maximize contracts to earn the best imports! If you've ever said that, you need to listen to our review of Clans of Caledonia. We also have some fun discussion on push/press your luck games. Enjoy!

We have a special guest on today's episode, Randall Thompson, one of the co-owners of Caper Games. They are best known for Get Adler, the deduction card game, and have a space exploration game currently on Kickstarter called Vertium. Go check it out in its final week, and check out some great stories Randall has to share about designing games and living abroad in Germany for several years. Enjoy!

Who doesn't love donuts? And cute artwork? And Gamewright games? We're reviewing Go Nuts for Donuts, an adorable game of collecting the best set of donuts. We also discuss Tile Laying Games and their history a little, and we reveal the back story behind one of our oldest traditions: Hug Time. Enjoy!

I want to look at shrubbery!  I really, really want to. Like, a lot!  I want to see a 1, then a 2, then a 3, then a 4, then a 5. That's how shrubbery works!  So, we're reviewing Topoiary, by Danny Devine, and Renegade Games. We also talk about Tableau Building games, where you build up a display in front of you, and then we discuss Superhero Fatigue, or the lack of it.

We're reviewing Planecrafters, an airplane building game that is coming to Kickstarter on June 12th. Also on today's episode, we'll talk about card drafting games, and share some of those pesky nightmares that we would have when we were kids. If you aren't a patron of the show yet, you can support us at patreon.com/meeple and get exclusive access to our Monthly Ketchup, a video show where we catch up on games we've played over the month and anything else worth mentioning.

Games can make us feel like kids sometimes. Usually in a good way! Sometimes we have fond, nostalgic memories of a game with family. Sometimes a company does a great job with a theme that reminds us of how excited we would be as kids to be playing as a race car, or star ship, or dinosaur!  So, join us today as Stephanie Smith from GeekyGirlyGames on Instagram recommends this topic, and wrote in her own Top 5 alongside ours. Enjoy, and never feel like you have to grow up!