The Thoughtful Gamer Podcast

We've been playing abstract games all month and we're here to tell you about it! Marc, Matt, and Orion go in depth about five different abstract games, both classic and new. We've all fallen in love with Go, and Tak was a pleasant surprise. What's so compelling about these games that some have survived for millennia? We've gotten a taste of it. 3:57 - What actually is an abstract game? 10:28 - Go 26:52 - Chess 46:30 - Santorini 55:01 - Onitama 1:01:18 - Tak 1:13:28 - Lines of play 1:16:46 - The unique beauty of abstract games Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Marc, Orion, and Matt continue their discussion of this incredible sci-fi trilogy. This time they're talking about the 2nd book, which is probably the most divisive but also the most tightly constructed. As always, major SPOILER WARNING! We're spoiling it all. If you have any interest, we recommend you read the books first. There's sci-fi concepts in here as good as anything Asimov ever did. 1:36 - Translation differences 3:14 - Cinematic feelings 6:21 - Not for the last time, we bring up scope 8:00 - Wallfacers 17:59 - Cosmic sociology 22:32 - Human sociology 28:00 - Droplet 33:50 - Dead man's switch 35:54 - Matt's gripes 41:21 - The dark forest Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Marc talks with Peter McPherson, designer of the upcoming Tiny Towns from AEG. What was it like working with a publisher for the first time, what was the design process for this family-weight construction euro, and what can we expect from Peter in the future?  1:58 - What was your entry point to modern board games? 4:57 - Designing and developing Tiny Towns 6:51 - Mandatory digression on "The Mind" 10:16 - The part where I remember to actually have Peter describe the game 14:49 - PAX Unplugged experience 15:57 - The publishing experience 26:22 - Other designs Peter is working on Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Join Marc, Matt, and Orion as they discuss a truly wonderful sci-fi series: The Three Body Problem. Here they discuss the first of this trilogy, looking at memorable moments and thematic elements of interest. A lot of what we find here will carry over into the broader second and third installments. 2:15 - Pre-spoilers: should you read this book? 9:14 - Spoilers ahoy! 9:48 - The "three body problem" in physics 12:39 - Cultural revolution and science in society 15:17 - Two great early scenes 21:56 - The VR game 23:03 - Okay, we're spoiling everything, for reals, now 27:35 - Underestimating scope and human scrappiness 32:34 - Tripwires and pessimism Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstraction Like the podcast? Want to watch it being recorded, live? Consider supporting it on Patreon.

Marc, Matt, and Orion, three people who typically don't care very much about the look of the games they're playing talk about the games that do have remarkable visuals and design. What games' aesthetics are so good or so bad that they affect our rating of them? What is it about those games that make them truly stand out? Also we talk about buckets. 6:08 - We stop talking about sports 8:43 - Ryan Laukat's games - selling the setting 12:53 - Forbidden Desert/Sky - the toy factor 18:47 - Rising Sun and Lacerda - abundance of detail 25:54 - Wingspan and Stonemaier 27:20 - Fog of Love, Tokaido, and others - clean looks 31:29 - Go and Chess - the look of history and myth 35:35 - Orion talks about buckets 45:18 - Our top games where the aesthetics significantly improve our rating of the game 1:04:47 - The wargame aesthetic 1:06:08 - Games we want to get a deluxe remake 1:10:17 - Lamenting about the lack of tangents in the conversation, which is in and of itself a tangent Music: Sailing The Solar Wind by Abstractio