The Thoughtful Gamer Podcast

It's finally here, and bigger than ever! Marc, Lindsay, and Orion count down their respective top 25 games of all time for triple the list. Plus there are puns. So, so many puns. I've marked each of them in the show notes. I'm sorry/you're welcome. SPOILERS BELOW. . . . . . . . . . . 1:45 - Marc #25: Battle Line 4:00 - Lindsay #25: One Night Ultimate Werewolf 6:43 - Orion #25: War of the Ring 7:42 - Marc #24: 1862 9:38 - Pun 1 9:39 - Lindsay #24: Boggle 10:53 - Orion #24: The Resistance 11:03 - Pun 2 12:18 - Marc #23: Food Chain Magnate 13:23 - Pun 3 13:41 - Lindsay #23: Ticket to Ride 14:41 - Orion #23: Codenames 15:01 - Marc #22: SpaceCorp 2025-2300AD 16:06 - Lindsay #22: Sidereal Confluence 17:13 - Orion #22: A Distant Plain 17:54 - Marc #21: Codenames 18:08 - Lindsay #21: Viticulture 18:24 - Pun 4 18:26 - Pun 5 18:52 - Orion #21: Food Chain Magnate 18:58 - Pun 6 (a second attempt -- boo) 19:11 - Marc #20: Vinhos 20:01 - Lindsay #20: Concordia 20:07 - Orion #20: Concordia 20:21 - Marc #19: War of the Ring

Marc, Orion, and Lindsay sit down to go over Marc's top games list, numbers 50-26. There are some big movers on this section of the list, even this high up, and a wide variety of games. Lindsay continues with the puns. Marc acknowledges them less. SPOILERS BELOW. . . . . . . . . . . 1:30 - #50: 7 Wonders Duel 3:08 - #49: Roll for the Galaxy 3:32 - #48: A Distant Plain 6:17 - #47: Tak 7:28 - #46: Dune 9:52 - #45: Sidereal Confluence 10:31 - #44: Falling Sky 11:16 - #43: Sprawlopolis 12:42 - #42: Tzolk'in 13:50 - #41: Lost Cities 14:57 - #40: For Sale 18:18 - #39: Pulsar 2849 18:52 - #38: The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine 20:37 - #37: Stephenson's Rocket 21:19 - #36: Pax Pamir 2e 22:33 - #35: Terra Mystica 23:07 - #34: My City 25:50 - #33: The Field of the Cloth of Gold 28:10 - #32: Battlestar Galactica 28:55 - #31: Lisboa 29:07 - #30: Pipeline 30:23 - #29: Pictomania 31:51 - #28: Nusfjord 31:53 - #27: Agricola 33:30 - #26: 7 Wonders Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast?

The countdown continues, with Marc, Marc, Lindsay, and Orion! SPOILERS BELOW . . . . . . . . . . 0:42 - A peek behind the curtain 2:10 - #75: London 2e 3:32 - #74: Union Station 5:21 - #73: Empyreal Spells and Steam 8:03 - #72: Battle for Biternia 9:49 - #71: Harvest 11:40 - #70: Great Western Trail 12:24 - #69: Power Grid 12:56 - #68: 1828 16:21 - #67: Magnate: The First City 17:54 - #66: Brass: Birmingham 18:58 - #65: Tiny Towns 19:33 - #64: Pandemic Legacy S1 22:30 - #63: Downforce 23:40 - #62: Mysterium 23:58 - #61: El Grande 25:00 - #60: Nidavellir 26:15 - #59: Fog of Love 28:54 - #58: Robinson Crusoe 29:36 - #57: Catch the Moon 31:12 - #56: 1846 32:16 - #55: Pax Transhumanity 33:44 - #54: Innovation 34:18 - #53: Tokaido 34:41 - #52: Three Kingdoms Redux 35:48 - #51: 1822CA 37:03 - Surprises and reactions and a discussion about hashtags Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

We're back! Marc, Marc, (that's not a typo) Lindsay, and Orion discuss the first quarter of Marc's top 100 games of all time. This segment contains both the newest and the oldest games on the entire list. SPOILERS BELOW. . . . . . . . . . . 0:58 - Lindsay starts us off with a pun. More to come... 2:28 - Themes of this list (starts with "pan" and ends with "demic") 4:13 - #100: The Search For Planet X 6:38 - #99: The Estates 6:49 - #98: Smartphone Inc. 6:51 - #97: Q.E. 6:56 - Methodology 9:42 - #96: Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection 10:36 - #95: Decrypto 13:15 - #94: Forbidden Desert 15:03 - #93: The Gallerist 18:53 - #92: Die Macher 20:24 - #91: Churchill 20:38 - A terrible error! #92 was actually Galaxy Trucker. Die Macher is #91 and Churchill is #90. All responsible for this unprofessional lapse have been sacked. 26:24 - #89: The Crew: Mission Deep Sea 29:02 - #88: Go 29:52 - #87: Let's Make A Bus Route 30:18 - #86: Viticulture 32:27 - #85: Inis 34:16 - #84: For Science! 35:45 - #83: Ba

Amber and Marc talk about the best games of 2020. The pandemic slowed down game playing so we've delayed this episode a year to allow for more gaming before we declare what is the "best". We also look at the best games of 5, 10, and 20 years ago, because over-focusing on the new is detrimental for a number of reasons. Remember the great games of the past! SPOILERS BELOW . . . . . . . . . . 0:39 - Why 2020? 5:20 - Games I wasn't able to get to 6:33 - BGG's favorite games of 2020 11:33 - Honorable Mention: Clinic Deluxe 12:01 - Honorable Mention: Spirit Island: Jagged Earth 12:56 - Honorable Mention: Cat in the Box 14:20 - #5: The Search for Planet X 16:50 - #4: Imperial Struggle 22:01 - #3: Nidavellir 23:41 - #2: My City 28:40 - #1: The Field of the Cloth of Gold 33:28 - Why we're not only going to focus on the new 34:37 - Top games of 2015 34:54 - Honorable Mention: Through the Ages 2e 35:13 - #5: Mysterium 35:45 - #4: Pandemic Legacy Season 1 36:37 - #3: Churchill 39:14 - #2: Food Chain Magnate 4

Just a quick announcement about some changes that'll be happening to the podcast and The Thoughtful Gamer generally going forward. In short, I'm going to stop trying to force a new episode every 2 weeks and instead record episodes when I have a good topic or a good interview. First impressions stuff will shift towards video. Make sure to subscribe at thethoughtfulgamer.com to not miss any written features and reviews. Long-term I want to work on very in-depth, more formal podcast series. Right now that's a vague 2022 goal. As always thanks for listening. I'm not going anywhere, just shifting focuses around.

Conventions are sort of back! Marc, Amber, Lindsay, and Orion drove down to Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago to go to one of the best board game conventions around, and they played tons of games! Marc's on the verge of a cold so his voice dropped half an octave and got real nasally. Some might say it's an improvement. Those people would be wrong. 0:26 - Comparing conventions 5:55 - Conspiracy: The Solomon Gambit 10:52 - Rise of the Metro 13:17 - 2Can 18:36 - Murano: Light Masters 21:41 - MicroMacro: Crime City 25:34 - The Estates 35:29 - Dinosaur World 40:50 - Lindsay's pun that no one seemed to notice 41:30 - Another pun attempt, this time more (or less?) successful 43:28 - Furnace 54:09 - Crokinole 57:41 - Salvage 1:03:30 - Nidavellir 1:12:05 - Q.E. 1:19:32 - Smartphone Inc. Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

It's another chillcast, this time with Marc and Amber. It...well, it gets a bit silly. I'm sorry. 1:09 - Literally we talk about the weather 3:52 - Oceans 13:41 - Boardgames: The Board Game (The Card Game) 18:24 - The City 20:52 - Marc explains why Munchkin is no good 22:10 - Pulsar 2849 26:37 - Marc gets really into salad metaphors 29:46 - Dinosauria (but actually there's more talk about Splendor) 32:06 - Yet another food metaphor 33:14 - What is the most chill game? 37:21 - Back to the weather and, like, geography. I'm so sorry 41:34 - Looped right back around to Dinosauria 43:42 - Bat Flip 45:06 - Why the designated hitter rule is an abomination (also I somehow forgot about the existence of Shohei Othani and that one's on me) 53:00 - I mean it's basically a baseball podcast now Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Austin's enthusiasm for Robotech Reconstruction is plain to see (hear?) in this podcast. As one half of the Dr. Wictz design team, he's gone deep into the lore of this classic anime to create a fascinating game exploring its political and military settings. What emerges is a tense 90-120 minute asymmetric game clearly inspired by the COIN series but also distinct from it in service of the setting. Learn how he balanced a number of different tensions to design and sell this under-seen game. 0:56 - What is Robotech Reconstruction? 4:36 - A brief history of Robotech lore 23:26 - Turning the setting into game form 40:34 - Comparing Robotech Reconstruction and the COIN system 58:05 - Biggest design challenge 1:07:45 - The card trading mechanism 1:15:20 - The playtesting/promotion/preorder period 1:17:35 - The art See more info and preorder here: https://strangemachinegames.com/robotech-reconstruction/ Dr. Wictz site: https://dr.wictz.com/ Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to

Marc sits down with Jason Perez from Shelf Stories to talk about colonialism in board games. Along the way they also touch on social media, moral philosophy, and a couple of tangential rants, as is tradition.  0:30 - Jason's projects 9:25 - Critique of Puerto Rico 25:40 - Endeavor: Age of Sail and the challenge of moral consequences 30:50 - Marc's tangential rant about (and spoiling) The Last Duel 34:39 - Jason gets his own tangential rant in for good measure 38:50 - Recognizing the player's perspectives 41:33 - The way social media distorts our perspective 52:36 - Everyone seems to care more about hypocrisy than the issues 59:16 - What to do as a designer 1:05:16 - Fantasy/Sci-fi colonization games 1:08:24 - Cultivating a better community Subscribe to Shelf Stories here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnaZ7055IWOdm8XCJfFRDcw Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Marc sits down with Erik Twice, Ryan LaFlamme, and Andrew Holmes to ask each of them about their approaching to selecting their 10 greatest board games of all time.  3:21 - Erik Twice's approach to selecting his top 10 7:41 - Why Netrunner? 12:27 - Why Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective? 17:57 - Erik's predictions 25:08 - Cosmic Encounter as board game comedy 34:48 - Erik's thoughts on the top 10 45:01 - Ryan LaFlamme's approach to selecting his top 10 49:28 - Why Triomphe? 53:42 - Why Agricola? 56:29 - Why Monopoly? 1:00:35 - Ryan's predictions 1:01:59 - Ryan's thoughts on the top 10 1:10:47 - Andrew Holmes' approach to selecting his top 10 1:16:41 - Why Whist? 1:22:37 - Why Gloomhaven? 1:29:32 - Andrew's thoughts on the top 10 Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Marc and Ben talk about a few of the new games they've been playing. They're...all good? It feels weird to have an episode this positive, but there you go. 0:58 - Dice Command 11:55 - Battle for Biternia 31:37 - Boardgames: The Board Game (The Card Game) 43:03 - Union Station 54:19 - The part where I call out Gil Hova about an extremely unimportant opinion 1:01:57 - Robotech: Reconstruction 1:08:22 - Card and Dice Poll information Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Amber and Marc discuss tile-laying games since they've been playing a number of them lately. What makes tile-laying so compelling? Why is it a feature in so many of our favorite games? 1:29 -- Carpe Diem 3:46 -- Is Carpe Diem simpler than Castles of Burgundy? 9:35 -- Tile laying: what is it? 12:12 -- Variables 15:15 -- Growth 21:00 -- Information density 29:14 -- Tangent: What does "abstract" mean anyways? 37:35 -- The importance of graphic design 40:27 -- Puzzling Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

I sit down with James to talk about his excellent debut game, Magnate: The First City, as well as his next project, cleverly titled Boardgames: The Board Game (The Card Game), and his podcast called Producing Fun. Magnate is such a bold and interesting first design and I'm completely on board for whatever he makes down the road.  1:07 -- James' start in board games 4:57 -- Starting to design 8:19 -- Creating Magnate: The First City 13:20 -- Developing the "crash" mechanism in Magnate 19:21 -- Different styles of eurogame 24:01 -- Advanced vs basic rules in Magnate 31:38 -- First time game publishing experience 35:03 -- Boardgames: The Board Game (The Card Game) 53:32 -- Adapting a theme to a set of mechanisms 56:35 -- Art strategy 1:00:33 -- Future Naylor Games projects 1:07:32 -- The Producing Fun podcast 1:11:38 -- Comparing the state of games to film history 1:22:25 -- Marc once again floats his pet mechanism by a podcast guest Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to wat

Marc and Ben have been playing a lot of new games, and you're going to hear about it! Come chill with us. 0:59 -- My City 5:13 -- Coldwater Crown 11:06 -- For Science! 19:51 -- Legends of Andor 27:11 -- Downfall 33:31 -- Exodus Fleet 38:29 -- San Juan 40:57 -- Antike Duellum 45:07 -- The Alpha 49:15 -- Tasty Humans 54:11 -- Glass Road 58:08 -- Anachrony 1:03:44 -- Ranking the games Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Dan Thurot has been reviewing board games for a number of years now, and for my money he's the best in the business. I had the pleasure of sitting down with him to talk about games criticism, and in the course of the discussion we touched on history, economics, literature, and more. Also, lots of Cole Wehrle games. Find Dan's writing at spacebiff.com  1:24 -- Dan's start in board game criticism 6:35 -- "Fun" 14:10 -- Changes in board game criticism over the last few years 18:43 -- Misunderstandings about criticism 26:24 -- Board game criticism is still young 29:16 -- Overspecialization of critique 36:18 -- Shared language 48:28 -- The value of historical games 1:00:27 -- Challenges posed by abstraction 1:13:49 -- Civilization games and accidents 1:18:50 -- Playing as the villains Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Marc and Bubba sit down to discuss two different forms of golf. They're still games, just on a larger scale. What makes them compelling as games, and what kinds of lessons can we learn about board games by looking at the history and development of course design? 1:18 -- Difference between a sport and a game 2:59 -- What is disc golf? 4:27 -- Our histories with the sports 12:19 -- Classifying golf and disc golf as games 15:57 -- The appeal of mastery over a difficult game 20:30 -- How will disc golf change in the near future? 24:02 -- Course design 25:26 -- The penal school of design 29:19 -- The strategic school of design 33:20 -- The strategic nature of par 4's 45:07 -- Designing around unorthodox throws in disc golf 49:15 -- Risk/reward, or push-your-luck 51:53 -- The heroic school of design 56:15 -- How should disc golf course design evolve and improve? 1:08:36 -- Applying these lessons to board game design 1:26:24 -- Which sport is best? Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Wa

Straight from the mind of Amber, this is an episode where she and Marc discuss games that are "painful". Marc prefers the word "tense". Regardless of what you call it, there's a reason Agricola is both known as "Misery Farm" and beloved by thousands. What makes a game painful rather than pleasant? What tricks can designers use to adjust the perception of their game? Are all board games simply metaphors about the inevitability of death? 2:15 -- The background 6:23 -- Game actions and the perception of time 15:00 -- Kingmaking tangent 18:53 -- Existentialism 27:02 -- Other games that cause Amber "pain" 29:53 -- Generous and non-generous games 37:17 -- Point floors 42:23 -- Non-gamers and not wanting to feel incompetent 46:22 -- Intermediary goals 49:37 -- Games where you can lose on the first turn 59:52 -- Is pain good? Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Amber and Marc are here to talk about perhaps the most prolific board game designer of all time: Reiner Knizia. Going strong since the early 90's, Knizia is a master of making a game no more complex than needed. His games are straightforward and clear--something we see less and less of. Weirdly, this episode is not straightforward, with some truly odd tangents and rants. 1:50 -- Knizia's reputation (and many tangents and rants) 20:24 -- Lost Cities 25:46 -- Battle Line 27:42 -- The Quest for El Dorado 28:49 -- Through the Desert 29:13 -- Medici: The Card Game 30:23 -- Stephenson's Rocket 32:20 -- Babylonia 36:39 -- Abstract isn't the opposite of thematic 39:30 -- My City 43:20 -- Things get...weird 48:02 -- Modern Art Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Dan and I chat about game design, his experience as a top-tier chess player, and, of course, tea! Check out Steeped Games and the Chai Tea For 2 Kickstarter, live now. 0:00 -- Creation of both Chai games 10:16 -- Dan's history with board games 12:25 -- Dan's experience as a Chess Master 35:39 -- Chess influencing modern game design 41:27 -- Tea Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.